


california

by tomorrowsrain



Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Some fluff I promise, Threesome - F/M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-03 03:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10958547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomorrowsrain/pseuds/tomorrowsrain
Summary: The call comes on a Tuesday morning, a familiar female voice on the other end of the phone. "You need to leave town. Today."It's been four months. He was hoping for more time, but he isn't surprised. "How long?""A week. Two at the most."





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I still can't stop writing these three. (Oops.) I also can't seem to be nice to Ruben. (Double oops.) Or write anything short. (Triple oops.) This one should only be two parts, though, as of right now. Second half to arrive shortly. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, in spite of the potential pain.

The call comes on a Tuesday morning. He’s on the bus headed to the community college, but he gets off four stops early when he sees the number.

It’s been four months. He was hoping for more time, but he isn’t surprised.

“Yes?” he says, a little terser than he means to be. His skin is crawling beneath his clothes, though, and panic is wrapping phantom fingers around his throat, so he thinks he can be excused some rudeness.

“You need to leave town,” a familiar female voice says. “Today.”

He closes his eyes. Counts in his head: _uno, dos, tres, respira._ “How long?”

“A week. Two at the most. There’s a conference happening in Manhattan.”

Of course there is. His luck was going to run out eventually. At least this won’t be a permanent move, unlike the last two. At least he can come back. Back to his tiny flat in Washington Heights, up the street from the bodega. Back to Usnavi and Vanessa and whatever it is that’s unfurling between them.

“Okay,” he says, clinging to that knowledge to keep his sanity. “I’ll go pack.”

“Be careful.”

He hangs up without saying good-bye and crosses the street in a daze to the stop that will take him back home. On autopilot, he dials the college and says that he’s going to need a two-week leave of absence. Family emergency. He’s careful to inflect the beginnings of tears into his voice, line his words with just enough desperation to evoke immediate sympathy.

The secretary on the other end responds as he hoped: lots of well wishes and no questions.

The bus pulls up with a rattle and a creak. He gets on and chooses a seat a window seat on the back row. Wraps his arms around his stomach, as though he can physically hold himself together, and rests his forehead against the seat in front of him—plastic digging hard into his forehead.

_Uno, dos, tres, respira, uno, dos, tres, respira, uno, dos, tres, respira uno dos tres respira uno dos…_

_ _

 

Looking back, he should have seen it coming. Really. It wasn’t just Ian that was getting more demanding, steadily unraveling.

Desperation has a way of turning men into monsters.

 

_ _

 

He swings by the bodega first, because he can’t not say good-bye. He won’t disappear on them—he’s done enough of that to people that he loves. Almost loves? Will love? He’s not sure yet, when it comes to Usnavi and Vanessa, but they feel like an inevitability.

“Hey,” Usnavi says when he enters, brow furrowed in concern. “Not that I ain’t glad to see you, but what are you doing here? Thought you had class? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says and tries out a reassuring smile. Usnavi’s brow furrows deeper. Shit.

“No, you aren’t,” Usnavi says and Ruben once again marvels at his ability to see right through him. It seems to be a unique talent of his, which Ruben finds incredible or unsettling, depending on the day.

He hasn’t told them much, in the month since they’ve started a tentative relationship—mostly consisting of kisses and hugs and lingering touches; nights spent curled up together in a bed or on a couch—but again, it’s only going to be a matter of time. He just has to work up the courage.

“I’m really okay,” he tries to insist, but Usnavi is already rounding the counter and reaching for him—callused fingers sliding over his cheek.

“Yo, Sonny!” Usnavi calls. “Take over. I’m steppin’ out for a minute!”

There’s an affirmative shout from somewhere in the back of the store and then Usnavi is guiding him upstairs and into the front room of his apartment. Ruben really doesn’t have time for this. He needs to pack and clean out his apartment and go unearth the car he’s been keeping stored nearby for this exact situation and put a good number of miles between himself and the city by nightfall, but Usnavi’s hands are curling around his sides now and he’s powerless to pull away. He just wants to let Usnavi hold him up for a few minutes—drown himself in Usnavi’s big, dark eyes and the warmth of his skin.

“What’s going on?” Usnavi asks, gentle. “Talk to me, please?”

“I need to leave town,” Ruben says, kind of proud about how even his voice sounds. “For a week or two.”

“Why?”

He should lie. He should lie and keep them safe. He should have never let a relationship with either of them get this far in the first place.

But he’s always been weak. “It’s a really long story.”

“Can you give me a cliff notes version?” Usnavi presses, rubbing at his sides. So achingly gentle.

Ruben sucks in a long breath. “Someone is after me. Kind of. And they’re going to be in the city for a conference. Downtown. And I know it’s probably stupid and paranoid, but I don’t want to take any chances so I’m skipping out until it’s over.”

Usnavi, bless him, doesn’t ask any of the literally dozens of reasonable follow-up questions he could choose from, just nods. “Okay. Let me call Vanessa.”

“Why?” Ruben asks and then thinks that maybe Usnavi wants to give him a chance to say good-bye. Which is nice and he hadn’t thought of it—was planning on letting Usnavi tell her, but she’ll probably be less inclined to kill him if he does it this way.

Usnavi smiles at him, crooked and affectionate, and Ruben hates the way his chest aches in response. “’Cause we’re not gonna let you do this on your own.”

Wait? What?

“Fuck,” Ruben says eloquently. Then, “you don’t have to do that. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I can’t ask you to—”

“You weren’t,” Usnavi cuts in. “I’m offering.” He reaches out and takes Ruben’s shaking hand. Laces their fingers together. “It’s summer. Sonny can cover the store—he’s been wanting more hours, anyway—and it’ll be totally _fine,_ kay? Let me call Vanessa.”

Ruben blinks at him, all of his careful calm evaporating. They keep fucking blindsiding them. He wishes they would stop. (That’s a lie, he definitely doesn’t.)

Usnavi gets Vanessa on the second try, explains everything to her in one rambling sentence, and then glances up at Ruben. “Where are we going?”

Shit. He’d just been planning to get in his beat-up car and drive until exhaustion forced him to stop but.

“I’ve never been to California,” he blurts.

Usnavi grins at him—crinkles in the corners of his eyes. “Perfect! We could visit Nina, you’ll like Nina. Hey, Ruben says California. Yep … okay … great. Love you, bye.”

He pockets his phone. “She’s gonna pack and meet us here.”

A very large part of Ruben still can’t believe this is happening. “Really?”

Usnavi kisses his cheek and laughs, quiet, against his skin. “Yes, really. Told you—we’re not lettin’ you do this alone, querido _._ ”

Ruben stomach twists and he’s not sure if it’s because of the pet name that falls so easy and lovely from Usnavi’s mouth or his acceptance of this mess or his and Vanessa’s unwavering support or all of it. Probably all of it. He doesn’t really have much to compare it to, but Ruben’s pretty sure he’s damn lucky.

“Thank you,” he says, eyes burning, and squeezes Usnavi’s hip. “Thank you.”

Usnavi hums. Gives him one last kiss, on the lips this time. “Go pack. I’ll see you in a few?”

Ruben nods and pries himself away with effort.

 

_ _

 

What he remembers from the first night in Jamaica:

 

  * The muggy night air, a whirl of stars overhead.
  * The scrape of the uneven tarmac against his sneakers.
  * Ian’s fingers around his arm, digging in deep enough to bruise, and Ian’s voice hissing like a snake in his ear, “ _behave, Ruben_.”
  * Car leather sticking to his sweaty skin.
  * Zip ties chafing his wrists.
  * A classic rock station on the radio—The Beatles occasionally bursting through the static. _“I get by with a little help from my friends…”_
  * Dust and dirt in his mouth as Ian drags him up the path to the nondescript house.
  * Wind rustling through the surrounding cane fields, low and almost mournful.
  * Throwing up on the front porch—alcohol and bile burning his throat—and Ian backhanding him in disgust. “ _Jesus Christ, Ruben.”_
  * The creak of the old chair beneath his weight. Ian looming over him like a mountain, immovable.
  * Fingers on his exposed throat, shockingly gentle. “ _So, Rubes, let’s talk.”_
  * Fear in his veins and his nerves, eating him alive.



 

_ _

 

He almost leaves without them, instinct driving him. It would be better, safer, kinder. The same reason he hasn’t spoken to his mother in almost a year. But he’s always been selfish as well as weak, so he follows his stupid, bleeding heart back to Usnavi’s apartment.

Vanessa is there, bag at her feet and long hair piled on top of her head. She hugs him as soon as he steps through the door and he presses his face into her neck, lets her hold him up for a breath, two, before reluctantly pulling away.

“So, California, huh?” she says. “Always wanted to go.”

“You really don’t have to—” he starts, guilt twisting in his stomach.

She puts a very gentle hand over his mouth. “Relax. Rosario’s been buggin’ me to visit for years. It’s cool. Though I demand that we sit on at least one beach while we’re out there.”

“I think I can manage that,” he says when she drops her hand and then his words get jumbled up so he leans forward and kisses her as a thank you instead.

Usnavi comes banging out of the bedroom as they’re pulling apart, bag slung over his shoulder. He throws enthusiastic arms over both of their shoulders, beaming at them each in turn, and Ruben trades a slightly overwhelmed glance with Vanessa. A combination of _god, he’s cute, isn’t he?_ and _we really should limit his caffeine intake for the next week, huh?_

“Right, everyone packed?” Usnavi asks. They nod. “Awesome. So how exactly are we getting there? I was thinking that it would probably be easiest to rent a car but—”

“I have a car,” Ruben interjects and then winces at the twin looks of surprise he gets in response.

“You do?” Vanessa asks.

“Yeah, it’s a few stops away on the train. Long-term parking place thing. I told the guy I was coming by to pick it up.”

Once again, they take this in stride.

“That solves that,” Usnavi says. “Let’s go.”

 

_ _

 

Ian doesn’t hurt him as much he was expecting, the first night. Keeps him tied to the chair until his arms are aching. Threatens. Paces. A slap here and there; fingers around his throat, digging in until a frightened whine spilled past his lips. And then, as the clock approaches 8:25 a.m. a sharp, sharp smile and a pat on the cheek.

“More later, Rubes.”

“It’s over,” Ruben argues, trembling. “Jason—”

Ian laughs and winks at him—some kind of joke he isn’t privy to—and then the change sweeps over him and he’s Jason again and Ruben wants to weep in relief.

“Ruben? W-where are we?”

“Jamaica,” Ruben says as Jason spins in a slow circle, taking in the house and the tropical sun streaming in through the slats in the blinds. “Please untie me?”

Jason does, fingers clumsy against the zip ties—three tries to undo them, and then Ruben is standing on shaky legs. He shoves his lingering panic down and focuses on the problem at hand.

“We’re somewhere remote,” he explains. “So, we might have to walk awhile before we find a lift back into town. We should be able to catch a flight back today, though, and…”

Jason isn’t listening to him, he realizes. Jason is staring off into space with a contemplative look on his face and Ruben feels a renewed jolt of terror.

“Jason?”

“We should stay here,” Jason says.

“W-what?”

Jason nods, gaining momentum. “This place is remote, you said, right? It’s perfect. I’m sure we could get supplies and we’re far enough away from civilization that he can’t hurt anyone. We’re on suspended leave from the hospital, anyway. We can stay here and work on the drug until we figure out the right platform.”

Ruben’s mouth drops open in shocked horror. “You … you can’t be _serious._ Jason—”

Jason grips his shoulder, fingers digging in deep enough to bruise. His blue eyes are manic. “It’s perfect, Ruben, don’t you see?”

“I want to go home,” Ruben tries. “I want to go _home_ , Jason. I told you, I’m done.”

“You can’t go home,” Jason argues. “You think he won’t follow you? You said he threatened your family, right? If you go back to Philly, you’re going to put them in danger.”

“Then I’ll go somewhere else. I’m not staying here with you, are you _insane?”_

Jason’s grip tightens. It feels like he’s pressing against bone and it _hurts._ “Please, Ruben. I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

Ruben tries to pull away, but Jason has him pinned. Warning sirens are blaring in his head—a litany of _get out get away get out get away get out get out get out..._

“You have to,” he says, wishing his voice sounded stronger. More assertive. “I’m not staying, I….”

“I’m so sorry, Ruben,” Jason says and then Jason’s hand is around his throat. “But this is the only way.”

Ruben freezes, shock momentarily numbing his brain. By the time his survival instincts kick in, it’s too late. He gasps, struggles, but Jason is stronger and Jason is pressing him back against the wall and there are black spots blurring the edges of his vision, expanding.

And then there is nothing at all.

 

_ _

 

“Holy shit,” Vanessa says between bouts of laughter, leaning against Usnavi in the parking garage. “You actually have a station wagon?”

Ruben isn’t sure what’s so funny. “Yes? It was cheap.”

“I can’t believe it,” Vanessa mutters with a shake of her head.

“Hey,” Usnavi says, nudging her. He’s also grinning, eyes bright with barely-contained mirth. “We’re very on genre here. All good road trips have to take place in a station wagon. The older the better, too.”

Ah. A movie thing. Ruben has never been good at movies or pop culture, so he’ll trust them that this is hilarious.

“Then we’re in great shape because Louise is ancient.”

Vanessa laughs again. “You named the car Louise?”

“Amazing,” Usnavi says.

Ruben shrugs. Okay, so he’s seen a few movies. “It fit. She’s old and temperamental. And red.”

“Amazing,” Usnavi repeats and kisses him on the temple.

“Dork,” Vanessa says, affectionate, and ruffles his hair.

They load their stuff in the back and he climbs behind the wheel. He has a vague route planned out in his head, something that will take them through some mountains and desert instead of just endless cornfields. He’s hoping, desperately, that Louise can make the trip. His current plan is to leave her in California instead of driving all the way back. It’s easier and he prefers not to hold on to things for too long, lest it create a trail.

Usnavi and Vanessa are so far the only exception. He just hopes they don’t end up regretting it.

“Okay,” he says, starting the engine. His fingers tremble when he curls them over the wheel but mercifully no one comments. “California.”

“California,” Usnavi agrees from the backseat.

Vanessa flips her sunglass down over her eyes, graceful as always, and levels him with a cheerful grin. Panic is still skating the edges of his mind ( _Ian and Jason in New York; Ian and Jason only a subway line away; Ian and Jason, Jason and Ian…)_ but having them here helps. So much.

He pulls out of the garage before he can become overwhelmed again. Just drive.

_Uno, dos, tres, respira..._

_ _

 

He wakes up locked in a closet. Pitch black and the air full of must and mothballs. His throat aches and when he opens his mouth to scream only a wheezing rasp emerges, dying as soon as it leaves his lips.

He settles for banging his fists against the wood instead, heart hammering in his chest.

The floorboards creak. A shadow eclipses the thin strip of light under the door.

“Ruben?” Jason still. He’s no longer sure if that’s better.

“Jason,” Ruben whispers, leaning his head against the door. “Please let me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason says. Ruben hates him, just a little, right now. “That I did that. But Ruben, this is the only answer for us. We don’t figure out the right platform and we’re dead.”

“You don’t have to live with Ian,” Ruben argues. He’s so fucking tired. “You don’t have to try to survive him every night.”

“We can lie to him. Tell him you’re playing me. Stringing me along. He’ll believe you. Please, Ruben, you have to understand. We can’t go back right now, but as soon as the drug is finished I promise, you can get on the first flight home and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“But not before then,” Ruben says, closing his heavy eyes. “Right?”

“I’m sorry,” Jason says again.

“You’re kidnapping me, you realize that?”

“I won’t hurt you.”

Ruben touches his tender throat. “You already have.”

“I won’t again. Please, Ruben, just cooperate with me on this?”

There’s nothing for it, Ruben realizes, and he wants to cry, his eyes are prickling, but he’s too numb. Emptied out.

( _“Let’s be honest. Jason, he’s using you. Once he’s got what he wants, you think you’re ever gonna see him again, you think you guys are friends? Think again. You’re not.”)_

Fuck. Ian was right.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, you win. Please let me out.”

The lock clicks and the door opens. He staggers forward, nearly crashing to his knees, but Jason catches him, helps him stand.

“Thank you,” Jason says, squeezing his shoulder. “Thank you, Ruben.”

Ruben wants to hit him, but keeps his hands carefully loose at his sides. He needs to be smart about this if he’s going to survive. Somehow, he manages a smile. “Sure. I’ll write down a list of what we need.”

Jason nods and goes to get him a pen and a piece of paper. Alone in the sunlit living room, Ruben buries his face in his hands and tries to remember how to breathe.

 

_ _

 

They wind their way slowly out of the city and west into Pennsylvania. Even though they’re nowhere near Philadelphia, he still feels nauseous when they cross the state line. Sixty-one miles doesn’t feel far enough.

Vanessa controls the music. She started on a classic rock station, but quickly flipped to a pop one when a Beatles song came on and Ruben experienced a full body jolt.

“Don’t like The Beatles?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Nope,” he says and doesn’t elaborate further, even though he knows he should.

Vanessa doesn’t push him, though. Just kicks her bare feet up on the dash, and his heart aches sharp in his chest. Christ, he doesn’t deserve them. 

Usnavi is asleep in the backseat, hat pulled low over his eyes and mouth wide open. Vanessa twists around and snaps several pictures of him, saving them to her phone. When she sees him looking, she shakes her head.

“Not a word, Marcado.”

“I was just going to ask you to send them to me,” Ruben fires back.

She smirks. “That I can do.”

A moment later, his phone buzzes in the cup holster. Usnavi snuffles and twists onto his side, hat sliding halfway off his head. He’s adorable and Ruben has to bite his lip to keep from grinning like a lovesick idiot.

Vanessa catches him, though—always seems to—and smirks again at the flush he can feel rising on his cheeks. She doesn’t tease him for it, like he was expecting, and her gaze is understanding: a silent  _me too._

He reaches out, surprising himself, and knots his fingers through hers. It’s getting easier to touch them with each passing week and he hopes that someday his skin won’t shudder at all, not even for a second, and he’ll be able to take them to bed.

He’s imagined that once or twice (because, _fuck,_ he’s sure it would be incredible, have you _seen them?)_ with a mixture of lust and terror, but right now the terror is still winning.

One step at a time, he’s been telling himself so far. They’ll get there.

Vanessa squeezes his hand and Pennsylvania unfolds around them in a blanket of green.

 

_ _

 

Jason somehow manages to scrounge up supplies for a decent chemistry set, along with enough groceries to stock the fridge and cupboards for a month.

(Ruben experiences a moment of hysteria at the thought of being trapped here that long.)

When Jason left—locking the door behind him—Ruben frantically tore apart the entire house, top to bottom, but he couldn’t find the satchel containing his passport and wallet. All the windows are pretty much rusted shut except a second story one and he’s not ready to break any limbs just yet.

( _Yet,_ god.)

“It’ll be fine,” Jason tries to assure him over dinner. He can’t look at Ruben, which might have something to do with the ring of bruises Ruben knows is around his throat, settling into a nice, awful purple at the moment. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Please stop talking,” Ruben whispers, pushing the rice around on his plate. His stomach is rebelling at the thought of food, still too knotted with fear to digest anything. “Please.”

Jason thankfully complies and they pass the rest of the evening in silence. At 8:26, Ian slams Ruben into the wall with a hand fisted in his hair.

Ruben whimpers and tries not to shake too much.

“What’s all this, Rubes?” Ian says, eyeing the tools scattered around nearly every available surface.

“Jason,” Ruben gasps out. “He wants to keep making the drug. I said I’d help him.” Ian’s fingers clench and Ruben whines again, eyes watering. “But I can help you instead. Jason doesn’t have to know. He trusts me.”

“Such a little rat, Ruben,” Ian says, sounding almost amused. Then his gaze drops to Ruben’s neck. “And I don’t think I gave you those, did I?”

“No,” Ruben says and Ian laughs, running his thumb over Ruben’s windpipe before pressing in.

“Oh, that’s rich. Jason’s finally snapped.”

“Please,” Ruben whispers. Doesn’t know what else to say.

Ian lets him go. “Fine, Rubes. I’m all for screwing over Jason, but remember what happens if you double cross me.”

“I know,” Ruben says, slumped against the wall.

“Good. As long as we’re clear.” He claps Ruben on the shoulder and grins, shark-like. “Let’s get started, then.”

Ruben was hoping for a chance to sleep, even just an hour or two—so exhausted from the rollercoaster of the last day that he’s having trouble keeping himself upright. But he knows better than to ask. Maybe Jason will be more forgiving in the morning.

He stumbles over to the chemistry set and begs his overworked brain to focus for just a little bit longer.

Eight more hours. That’s all.

( _Please…)_

 

_ _

 

They stop for dinner somewhere outside of Dayton, one of those retro-tourist diners. Vanessa drops quarters in the tableside jukebox and punches in _It’s Not Unusual_ by Tom Jones. Kicks Usnavi under the table when he grins at her.

Ruben orders a grilled cheese sandwich and a milkshake, because he’s a fucking adult. Kicks Vanessa under the table when she arches an eyebrow at him for it.

“This is great,” Vanessa says as they wait for their food, wholly sincere. “I’ve never really been outta the city before.”

“I’ve been as far as Colorado,” Ruben says. “Anything beyond that is a mystery.”

“So it’ll be an adventure for everyone,” Usnavi says and steals a sip of Ruben’s coke.

Ruben rolls his eyes, but nudges the glass closer so Usnavi can have more without leaning over him.

“And I know I owe you guys an explanation,” he says, the nerves back. Fluttering just beneath his skin. “Just give me a little time?”

“Of course,” Vanessa says, easy.

“And you don’t owe us anything,” Usnavi insists with squeeze to his arm.

“I do,” Ruben counters firmly. “We’re dating…?” he pauses, giving them both a questioning look because they haven’t actually had time to sit down and define what they are in clear terms. He gets twin nods, though, and something loosens in his chest, making it easier to breathe.

“We’re dating,” he continues, “so you should know some of this. At least the cliff notes version.”

“As much as you can stand to tell us,” Usnavi says.

“Don’t push yourself,” Vanessa adds.

Oh look, now there’s a giant lump in his throat. Fortunately, their food arrives and he can try to jam half of a grilled cheese sandwich in his mouth instead of answering. He’s not very good at loving someone anymore, he thinks.

Or maybe he never was.

 

_ _

 

The days spiral out. Jason lets him sleep in the mornings, wakes him up around noon and it’s never enough but he doesn’t complain.

Every few days, Jason goes out to do a supply run and Ruben spends at least an hour trying to pick the lock on the front door. (No luck yet, but he isn’t giving up.) At night, Ian paces through the house like a restless tiger, alternating between bored and impatient, but never straying very far from violent. In the morning, Jason studiously avoids looking at the fresh wounds Ruben has covered up with gauze—burns on the underside of his arm, a slash on his palm, welts on his shoulders—or the bruises he doesn’t bother to hide.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says once, when he catches Ruben in the bathroom, rubbing disinfect on a fresh cut to his stomach.

“Don’t,” Ruben says, hoarse. Ian likes to choke him, too, and his voice has never had time to recover. “You don’t mean it.”

Jason opens his mouth, probably to insist, and Ruben musters up enough energy to glare at him.

“If you meant it you would let me go.”

Jason slinks from the room, cowed, and Ruben braces his hands against the sink, trembling through a now familiar wave of panic.

Jason has yet to hit him, but the lines between him and Ian are so blurred now Ruben has trouble telling the difference. It probably doesn’t matter anymore. They’re both draining his life away piece by blood piece.

He’s worried about how much of him is going to be left, at the end of it all.

 

_ _

 

The motel they stop at is … not great. A tiny step up from being the site of a horror movie, actually. But neither Usnavi nor Vanessa complain. He plans on giving them one of the lumpy beds and taking the other (all the while trying not to think about what that stain on the sheet is or touch it under any circumstances) but they crowd up to the side of his bed.

“Is this okay?” Usnavi asks and when he nods, they squeeze in on either side him.

Three grown people are definitely not meant to sleep in a double bed, but they make it work—Vanessa with an arm around his waist and Usnavi’s legs tangled with his own. He blinks up at the ceiling, the lump firmly back in place. But at the same time words are pressing against the back of his teeth, emboldened by the darkness.

“I was a chemist,” he says into the stillness. “A year ago. I was a chemist and I worked at a hospital.”

He knows they’re listening—can hear Usnavi’s little hitch of breath—but neither of them interrupt him.

“I ran the pharmacology research lab, but I spent a stupid amount of time making illegal drugs for the head of neurosurgery.” His voice catches on Jason’s name. He can’t say it yet so he skips forward. “And this is going to sound crazy, I know, but he had this … this problem. Like an alternate personality that he was trying to suppress. Came out every night. At eight fucking twenty-five for some reason. Never figured that one out. But it was—he was—the alternate personality—was evil.”

“Like Jekyll and Hyde?” Usnavi asks and a broken laugh punches free of Ruben’s mouth.

“Yes. Yes, exactly like that. Exactly…”

Vanessa’s fingers brush his stomach and he shivers. Subtly shifts her hand a little higher and she kisses his clothed shoulder in silent apology.

“Anyway, that’s where this whole shitshow started. He wanted me to make a drug for him to repress that personality and I said yes because it was an interesting challenge and I’m a scientist and he had blue eyes and a nice smile.”

His eyes are flooding and his blinks, stubborn. “I was such an idiot.”

“I doubt that,” Usnavi murmurs.

“Yeah. A dork, maybe, but not an idiot,” Vanessa agrees.

He sucks in a noisy breath and he doesn’t believe them, but he also doesn’t want to tell them that. They might know anyway, he realizes, because Usnavi’s lips find his jaw and Vanessa murmurs, uncharacteristically tender, “get some sleep, okay, Ruben?”

Sleep, yes. He’s not expecting to be able to, but with them pressed warm against him it comes surprisingly easy.

 

_ _

 

The days spiral out. He’s not sure how long he’s been here anymore. At least a week, maybe a month. Jason won’t tell him and Ian confiscated his phone along with the rest of his stuff. He wonders if his family is looking for him; if they’ve filed a missing person report. It hurts, thinking about his mother back home, worrying for him, so he puts it in a box in the back of his mind and welds the edges shut.

A while ago, Jason vanished on one of his errands and returned with a bag of ill-fitting clothing for them both. He surreptitiously checks the tags, trying to find any kind of clue as to where they came from, but nothing. It’s mostly bright-colored shirts and pants so big he has to punch new holes in a belt to keep them from falling off.

After wearing the same outfit for so long, though, he’s relieved. (Especially about the clean underwear.)

He spends the majority of his days and nights hunched over the chemistry set on the kitchen table, steadily deforming his spine. He’s filled two new notebooks with diagrams and equations but nothing is sticking. He’s nowhere near top form—tired and strung out and hurting—and when he tries to convey this, tries to ask for a day or two off to recover, he gets a lecture from Jason and a vicious kick in the ribs from Ian.

The kick tips his chair over, sending him crashing to the floor, and before he can catch his breath Ian fists a hand in the front of his shirt, hauling him up.

“I don’t appreciate stalling, Rubes.”

“I’m not stalling,” he protests, fruitlessly. “I warned Jason that this could take _months,_ I— _.”_

Ian shakes him so hard his teeth clack together. “Does it look like we have months?” Another rough shake. “Does it, Ruben?”

“N-no,” Ruben stammers out and Ian drops him back to the floor. He lands hard on his knees, splinters in his palms from the rough wood.

“Then _quit stalling._ ”

Not for the first time, Ruben wonders if he’s going to die here. And not for the first time, he wishes that Ian had just killed him at the airport.

Would have saved them both a lot of trouble.

 

_ _

 

Usnavi takes over driving duties the next morning (because he is the only morning person of the three of them by any stretch of the imagination) and Ruben curls up in the battered back seat with a cup of coffee.

Vanessa, feet back up on the dash, has an honest-to-god old fashioned map spread across her knees—recently purchased from the motel’s pathetic “gift shop” because according to her, maps are just as much a part of the road-tripping experience as old station wagons.

“Okay,” she says, scratching out lines with a pencil. “What if we keep going west until we get half-way through Colorado and then we can head south and swing by the Grand Canyon before we get to California.”

“I vote a definite yes to the Grand Canyon,” Usnavi says.

Ruben raises his hand. “Aye.”

Vanessa draws a circle on the map with a satisfied hum and Usnavi rolls down the windows, letting in the cool morning air and turning Vanessa’s hair into a miniature hurricane.

Ruben leans his head back against the seat, watching the road signs whip past— _Indianapolis, 117 miles—_ and feels something close to the content.

They pause at a rest-stop for sandwiches and a Chinese fire drill: Usnavi to the back, Ruben to the passenger seat, Vanessa behind the wheel, and then they’re crossing the border into Illinois.

“I lived in Chicago for a while,” Ruben finds himself saying.

“How was it?” Vanessa asks.

“Fucking _cold.”_

Usnavi laughs, head tilted back and shoulders shaking with it. Ruben’s fingers itch for a camera.

_ _

 

Finally, _finally_ he manages to get the lock on the door. The _click_ as it turns is the most beautiful fucking sound he’s ever heard in his entire life.

It’s dark outside. Ian, too restless for the shrinking walls of the house, left with numerous threats for him to behave and he probably doesn’t have long so he bolts down the rickety porch steps at a dead sprint. He has a plan already mapped out: head for the cane fields but stick close to the road; try to find some houses, some sympathetic locals—show them his wounds if need be. Ian gave him a black eye yesterday, that should help.

It’s pitch dark out, new moon, and he trips numerous times on the uneven ground, barely able to see his hands in front of his face. He picks himself up every time and keeps going. On and on and on—at least a mile. Two miles. But there are no houses yet, not even lights in the distance.

Shit. _Shit._ He didn’t think they were this far out. Was too terrified to pay proper attention when Ian drove him here.

This is taking too long. How long has it been already? An hour? At least.

Shit. Fuck. He might have to risk the road.

It no longer becomes a choice when he stumbles on a hole in the earth and feels his ankle twist—a hot lance of pain running up his leg. He slaps a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out and breathes out slow through his nose. Okay, okay, the road. He’ll stay in the shadows, duck if he sees a car coming, it’ll be fine.

He limps his way onto the asphalt and keeps going. On and on and on. Still nothing and his leg threatens to give out with every step. He stops, finally, and hunches over to catch his breath.

_Think, you idiot, think._

It’s so dark, it’s too fucking dark—he should have waited for daylight, then he might have been able to fashion a splint. Maybe he can find a spot to hide in the cane and wait until dawn, _then_ fashion a splint. That might actually…

An engine rumbles in the distance, getting steadily louder, and he freezes. Headlights, coming over the hill. Oh crap, oh crap he needs to move, but he _can’t_ —even shifting his weight sends a scream of agony rocking through him, so he’s trapped like a wide-eyed, helpless rabbit under the glare.

The car rumbles to a stop and he shields his eyes, hunching down.

Please, please, if anyone out there is listening let it not be Ian. Anyone but Ian, please…

“Oh, Rubes,” a familiar voice says and his heart drops like a stone to the pit of his stomach. “You stupid little shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, kudos, and any other form of validation are greatly appreciated. :)
> 
> I can also be found over [here](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com), blogging about random crap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings, including the big one, are in full effect for this chapter. Nothing is described in graphic detail, but please tread carefully. An additional warning for brief suicidal ideation. 
> 
> I'm so sorry.

They stop in St. Louis to take a picture in front of the Gateway Arch: Vanessa in the middle, Usnavi and Ruben on either side, arms around each other’s shoulders. They look good together, Ruben dares to think when he pulls the picture up after, as well as: wow, this smile actually reaches his eyes. Miracle of miracles.

Then, of course, Usnavi finds out that you can go _up_ the arch and insists they take time to do that.

“I don’t know,” Vanessa says, peering up at it with a dubious frown. “You know I’m not the biggest fan of heights.”

“It’ll be fine,” Usnavi says. He’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, tugging them both forward, and Ruben has never been able to say no to him—isn’t going to start now.

“If we don’t he’ll be sad,” he whispers to Vanessa. She side eyes him hard, but he can see her giving in.

“Yes, devastated,” Usnavi says, turns the full force of his puppy dog eyes on her, and yep that’s her annihilated.

“Fine,” she says with a roll of her eyes and Ruben studiously keeps a straight face as Usnavi pulls them towards the visitor’s center.

“Stairs, tram, or elevator?” he asks them, reading the information plaque mounted on the wall.

“Tram,” they reply in almost perfect unison and Ruben feels a rush of relief that Vanessa’s in agreement with him. Climbing—he checks the plaque over Usnavi’s shoulder—one thousand and seventy-six stairs would probably kill him, considering his current fitness level, and he doesn’t do well with elevators anymore.

It turns out the tram is not much better—more of a weird capsule than what he was picturing in his head—but at least there’s a small window. He still squeezes the life out of Usnavi’s hand for the four-minute ride because _goddamnit_ the car fucking _swings,_ like an enclosed Ferris wheel, and he did not sign up for that.

“I hate you,” Vanessa hisses to Usnavi halfway up, looking vaguely green herself, and Usnavi pats her leg in apology.

The view is kind of worth it, though, Ruben will admit. The observation deck is mercifully spacious, even if the windows are tiny, but through them he can see for miles: the Mississippi River, a massive ribbon of blue; the city laid out in sparkling silver to the west; the virulent green of the Illinois countryside to the east.

“Wow,” Usnavi murmurs next to him, leaning down to peer out one of the windows. “This is incredible.”

“I’ve always liked looking at the world from up high,” Ruben says, remembering evenings on the rooftop of his apartment complex in San Juan, watching the sun set over the distant ocean. “It feels more pristine. Uncomplicated. You don’t see any of the dirt or decay or problems. Nothing can touch you.”

Usnavi hums in quiet agreement. “Yeah, when I was kid everything felt more manageable from the top of a fire escape. I used to pretend that if I climbed high enough, I’d just … float away—like superman or something. Never have to deal with anything again.”

“Well I was always afraid of falling to my death,” Vanessa says, wry, but she lingers by the windows and Ruben sees her snapping photos at one point—wonder stealing soft across her face.

And he might take a picture of it, when she’s not looking. He wants to store up as many memories of them as he can. That way, when they leave him or he has to run again, he can look back and have evidence that for one brief moment, he was something close to loved.

 

_ _

 

He comes to on one of the beds upstairs—sunlight outside the dirty windowpane. He’s lying on his front, in just his boxers, and the night before resurfaces in horrifying flashes:

Ian: dragging him to the car, hauling him back into the house, shoving him to his knees in the middle of the living room. Ten seconds to strip down to his underwear. More zip ties, securing him to the bannister of the stairs. Agony, putting weight on his busted ankle, but Ian’s hand wrenching his head back.

“If you don’t stay standing, I start over, understand?”

The clink of a belt being unbuckled, the scrape of metal against the floor, a whistle of air— _fire, fire_ against the skin of his back and a shocked scream ripping out of him, wrenched from deep inside.

From somewhere very far away: “Oh, and I expect you to count.”  

 _Crack._ More fire. Another rasping cry.

“ _Count,_ Ruben.”

“T-two?”

A laugh, cold. “No, you didn’t listen. So that was one.”

He turns his face into the pillow and sobs, loud in the strange quiet of the room. His legs gave out after ten and Ian started over. He lost track of the strikes after another five and Ian started over. He can’t remember what the final count was, doesn’t want to.

Everything _hurts._

And where there was hope there is now only dead, empty space inside of him.

One more sob, his aching shoulders hitching with it, and then he forces himself to sit up. With a start, he realizes that gauze is wrapped around his torso and a makeshift brace is secured on his ankle. It looks neat, professional.

Jason.

He shivers and wishes he could figure out what to feel.

The bedroom door is open, the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs. His stomach gurgles in protest, but he ignores it, crossing over to the window. He already knows, he has no hope left, but he still curls his fingers around the sill and tries to pull it open.

Nothing. Jason or Ian glued it shut.

 _Don’t cry,_ he tells himself furiously as his vision starts to blur. Crying won’t help anything and he already feels pathetic enough, covered in bloody gauze and shamed by his failure.

He scrubs a harsh hand over his eyes and fishes a t-shirt out of the dresser, for once glad that it’s two sizes too big. Putting it on takes careful maneuvering and several pauses to bite the inside of his cheek and breathe careful through his nose, but he manages. Pants next, he refuses to go down there in his boxers, even though he knows it’s stupid—Jason and Ian have already seen him like this.

Still, he feels better when he gets the baggy jeans cinched around his waist, and, with a steeling breath, he limps his way carefully down the stairs.

Jason is at the stove and there is now a padlock on the front door, secured with a heavy chain.

“Oh,” Jason says when the creaking floorboards herald his approach, “you’re up. I was going to bring food to you, but.” He pulls out a chair, eyes earnest in spite of the dark circles bruised underneath them. “Here, sit down. You should stay off your ankle.”

Ruben sinks into the chair. Puts his shaking hands in his lap. “So, have I earned a day off, then?”

Jason grimaces, guilty. “Of course. Yes. You can rest.” He sets a plate in front of Ruben: eggs, bacon, and toast—everything slightly burnt. “I, um, I disinfected all of the lashes and the ankle is only a sprain, so you should heal without any complications. We’ll just need to change your bandages twice a day to start, at the least. The bleeding should have stopped by now, but—”

“Please let me go,” Ruben whispers, eyes on his plate.

Jason flinches. Jerks like Ruben has hit him. “I … I can’t do that, Ruben. You know the stakes here. If we don’t…”

Ruben laughs, grating and bitter. He’s so tired and he’s so angry, but mostly he’s just fucking sad. “He tied me to a bannister and whipped me until I passed out, Jason. As p-punishment.”

“For trying to escape,” Jason says quietly. “I know.”

“So, tell me,” Ruben says, approaching hysterical, “when he _kills me_ what are you gonna do? B-bury my body in the cane fields and just forget this ever happened? W-what are you gonna tell everyone back home? What are you gonna say to my _family?_ Accident? Suicide? _What?_ ”

“Ruben…” Jason runs an agitated hand through his hair. He looks pale and drawn, like a picture that’s started to fade around the edges. Ruben wants to hate him, but he used to love him, or something near it, and he still doesn’t know how to stop. (God, he’s _pathetic_.) “I’m so sorry. I am. But Ian isn’t going to kill you. I won’t let him.”

“Forgive me if that isn’t exactly comforting,” Ruben says, “considering you’ve done nothing to stop him so far.”

“You tried to escape,” Jason blurts and the words hit like a punch—send him reeling.

“So this was … was _justified_?”

“No,” Jason says, rushed. “No, of course not. That’s not what I … please just eat, Ruben?”

He’s too exhausted and hurt to argue any further, so he picks up the fork and forces down a bite of cold eggs. Obedient as always.

 

_ _

They get a little drunk at a dive bar in Topeka, trying to escape the heat.

(As they’re parking, Usnavi climbs out of the car and announces, in a voice pitched much higher and reedier than usual, “it’s hot in Toooo-peee-kaaa!” Ruben doesn’t get it, but Vanessa lets out a long-suffering sigh and mutters, “idiota, _”_ under her breath.)

Vanessa kills it at pool and catches every eye in the room. Usnavi hums along to the god-awful country music playing over the speakers while Ruben has perhaps one too many shots, wanting to get rid of the static under his skin.

The drink makes it easier to touch them, too—to kiss them in the parking lot after dark. And he almost suggests going back to the motel and escalating things because he’d better at it like this: buzzed enough that he’d only be a little afraid. They’ve waited long enough, been so patient with all of his hang ups, and he _wants_ to give this to them.

He let Ian fuck him and they’re … he should. He knows he should.

But when he opens his mouth, all he gets out is “do you want to—” before Usnavi kisses his jaw and says, “it’s okay.”

“We don’t need to rush anything,” Vanessa insists from his other side, arm around his waist.

He glances back and forth between them and wonders how much they can see. Decides he doesn’t want to know—they aren’t judging him, that’s what matters.

“Okay,” he says, glad that the shoddy streetlights will hide the stunned tears brimming in his eyes. They make him emotional so easily. He wishes he could hate them for it. “Sleep, then?”

Usnavi’s chin presses into his shoulder. “Sleep.”

Vanessa, almost completely sober (or just way better at holding her liquor), drives them to the hotel a few blocks away. A Best Western this time with comfortable beds and a continental breakfast that he’s going to take full advantage of in the morning. They kiss a little bit more in the entryway to the room, crowded together against the cheap wallpaper. It’s good, comfortable, and he doesn’t feel trapped when they press into him.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles before he can stop himself—the alcohol loosening his tongue, “that I can’t give you more than this.”

Usnavi makes a sound he can’t identify, but something that looks a lot like heartbreak flickers on his face before he kills it with a smile. “No, querido. This is great. _You’re_ great.”

“No rush, remember?” Vanessa says, sounding carefully neutral. “We just had this discussion, babe.”

 _Babe,_ Ruben thinks and takes a moment to be giddy. His thoughts are splitting like atoms—the static in his brain now—and he decides not to argue with them even though there is still greasy guilt coalescing in his stomach.

“Right, sorry. Sleep?”

Vanessa runs her fingers through his messy hair. “Sleep.”

_ _

 

There are cleaning supplies under the sink—enough chemicals to kill him and quickly. He pulls them out when Jason finally makes another supply run. Lines them up on the kitchen counter. It would take him five minutes to mix up something and fifteen minutes to die, twenty at most.

Twenty-five minutes to remove himself from this equation. To end all of the hurt and fear that’s still tearing him apart.

He closes his eyes and thinks about it, weighs it up in his mind. Jason’s platitudes aside, he knows that most likely Ian won’t let him go home. Killing him here would be easy and locating his body hard. Or make it look like a suicide. Poor, lonely chemist hops on a plane to Jamaica and offs himself in solitude—it’s probably been a news story before. His nice, doctor friend went with him. Tried to talk him out of it, but it was no use.

He pictures Jason or Ian in his mother’s living room with crocodile tears. Handing her his battered satchel. “ _I’m so sorry, Estefania. I did everything I could.”_

So, if that’s the inevitable end, does he go out now instead? On his own terms? Leave Jason and Ian stuck here with a half-finished drug and let them wage this stupid war on their own?

No, he decides after a long moment. No. That’s not good enough.

He doesn’t want to die here. He’s going to survive and if he has to take them both out to do it, then he will. 

 

_ _

 

It’s fucking _hot._

He wakes up with the start of a hangover and the sheets sticking to his skin. Usnavi and Vanessa are still passed out and he’s careful extracting himself from their embrace. A cold shower helps, but he gives in and fishes a pair of loose shorts and a t-shirt from the bottom of his bag. Compromises by putting an open, thin button-up on over it and rolling the sleeves up to his elbows.

He still examines his visible scars before leaving the bathroom, trying ignore the sick shiver running down his spine. Clinically, they’re not that bad: a few fading burns, one or two slashes, rings around his wrists from zip ties and rope. The ones on his back and thighs are worse.

And Usnavi and Vanessa won’t care.

This theory is immediately put to the test when he steps out of the bathroom and runs into Vanessa. She blinks at him, looks him up and down, and then says “ _fuck.”_

He forces himself to stay still and keep his arms at his sides. He doesn’t _think_ she’s talking about his scars. She waves a hand, meant to encompass all of him. “Where the hell have you been hiding _this_ look?”

“Hace calor, _”_ he mutters defensively.

She smirks at him. “ _You’re_ hot.”

Well. He ducks his head in an attempt to hide the flush on his face. Usnavi, of course, chooses that moment to round the corner, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “Hey, what’s…?” He trails off, zeroing in on Ruben. “Fuck.”

“Really?” Ruben says, a little disbelieving. “It’s just shorts and a t-shirt.”

“Exactly,” Vanessa says.

“Uh-huh,” Usnavi says, waggling his eyebrows.

Ruben’s face is probably bright red, but he can also feel a pleased grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He’s never had anyone look at him the way Usnavi and Vanessa are right now, and his scars aren’t even a factor.

Christ, he’s going to fall for them so hard. (He already is.)

_ _

 

Test after test after test and he’s still fucking _nowhere._ Granted, he’s working out of a rundown house without several vital pieces of equipment, but still. This might actually be impossible.

“We just have to keep trying,” Jason insists when he conveys this sentiment.

Ian, less forgiving as always, bends him over the kitchen sink with a hand gripping his neck. He’s been trying to think of ways to get back into Ian’s good graces after his ill-fated escape attempt, but so far, no amount of meekness has worked. Ian is a gathering storm, rattling the walls with his fury, and now Ruben whimpers in terror when Ian tears the gauze from his still-healing back.

“I’m tired of your fucking excuses, Rubes,” he snarls.

A cupboard door opens and closes. Something hard and plastic presses between his shoulder blades and he knows without looking that it’s the bleach.

“N-no,” he gasps, trying not to think about how much that will _hurt_. “W-wait, _please._ ”

“Why should I?”

He has one card left to play—one he was hoping desperately to avoid, but it will hurt less than torture. Physically, it’s more easily endured, and it might work where meekness hasn’t. Ian isn’t just angry, he’s _bored—_ cooped up in this house without any of his usual distractions. Jason warned Ruben not to underestimate him, but Ian is predictable: hedonistic above all else. Or perhaps escapism is more accurate—drugs and sex and violence to hide all the inadequacies of a life condensed forever into twelve hours.

Either way, when Ruben licks his lips and says, “fuck me instead,” he already knows what Ian’s inevitable answer will be.

Ian pauses, actually thrown off balance, it seems. “What?”

Ruben closes his eyes, curls his fingers around the edge of the sink. “Fuck me instead.”

Ian pulls the bleach away (thank god) and wrenches him around—fingers at his throat, forcing him up on his toes. “What kind of game are you playing here, Ruben?”

He can sell this; he has to sell this.

“N-no game. It would be b-better, right? For you.”

“And you?” Ian asks conversationally, tightening his grip.

Ruben wheezes, puts a weak hand on Ian’s arm to give himself some leverage. “Y-you know how I feel about J-Jason and it’s … it’s better t-than torture.”

“So, you want this?” Ian says and now he seems amused.

 _No._ “Yes.”

Ian releases him and steps back. “Prove it, then.”

He sucks in a heaving breath and coughs, hunched against the counter.

“I’m waiting, Rubes.”

One more breath to lock away the part of him that’s screaming. It’s better than torture. It has to be better than torture.

He sinks to his knees, makes himself small and submissive. Doesn’t bother to hide the wetness rimming his eyes. “P-please.”

Ian laughs.

_ _

 

They stop by the side of the empty highway to watch a storm unfolding over the corn fields—towering black clouds and bolts of lightning just like he always sees in desktop screensavers.

It’s exhilarating, the shake of thunder through the ground beneath his feet and the electricity on his tongue. The wind is picking up into a howl, tugging angry at his clothes.

“Holy shit,” Usnavi says as several streaks tear from the sky at once, blinding. He’s got his hat clamped firmly on his head and Vanessa is filming on her phone.

They stay until the first fat drops of rain land on their skin and then it’s a mad scramble back to the car, slamming the doors closed just as the sky opens up. They’re half-drenched and laughing. Ruben’s sides hurt with it and he presses his cheek to the steering wheel. Tries to reel himself back in—adrenaline sparking through his nerves.

“That was awesome,” Usnavi declares, wringing out his hat in the back seat.

Vanessa shows them the video she captured: mostly the storm, some of the them. Ruben feels like he’s looking at a stranger, watching the naked awe take over his face, making him seem like a wide-eyed boy.

Young, he looks _young._

Weird.

He shakes off the lingering unease and pulls carefully back onto the road—windshield wipers working overtime and even then he can barely see.

“Maybe we should just wait it out,” Usnavi suggests when the car starts to hydroplane and Ruben frantically evens it out.

“Good call. Louise isn’t liking this.”

He flicks on the hazard lights and stops in the mud on the side of the road, less than a mile from where they were before. Vanessa tugs on his sleeve, nodding to the back seat. “C’mon.”

It’s awkward, wiggling through the small gap in the seats, and he lands in Usnavi’s lap—starts to tense on instinct but Usnavi gives him an overly lecherous smile and a low, “hey,” and both are too ridiculous to get anywhere near sexy, especially with his hair sticking up like that. Ruben laughs into his neck and slides off, nestling into the middle space.

Vanessa digs a blanket out from under one of the seats and throws it over them. They cuddle together, limbs tangled, and outside the car the rain soaks the earth. 

 

_ _

 

He doesn’t fight. Not when Ian fucks his throat until there are tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes and his jaw _aches_ and he can’t _breathe._ Not when Ian forces him back to his feet and grins at the state of him: the tremors he can’t keep from his hands and the mess around his swollen mouth; calls him a slut and sounds almost affectionate.

And not when Ian drags him up the stairs and throws him face down on the bed.

There’s a water stain on the far wall that he never noticed before, blooming out from the closet door, and he focuses on that. Can’t look at Ian climbing on top of him. Ian’s hand pressing on his raw back. If he squints, he can almost make out a coherent shape. One of those optical illusion puzzles he used to love as a child—is it a glass or an old woman’s face? This one looks kind of like an elephant. Maybe.

Ian is unbuckling his belt, pulling his shirt over his head.

Ruben has never done this before. Other things, but not _this._ Not with a man. Always pictured his first would be—

Or maybe it’s a face, after all. Like that story he saw, years ago: The Virgin Mary on an underpass in Chicago. Jesus on a piece of toast. His mother used to call those miracles and he never corrected her—wanted her to keep her faith and her catechisms and the rosary she wrapped around her wrist, prayer beads moving through her slim fingers. It made her strong in ways he couldn’t understand.

He doesn’t want to think about God or his mother right now. So, elephant, definitely an elephant.

Fingers in his hair, pulling.

“C’mon, Rubes. You said you wanted this. Stop whining and participate.”

Right. He did say that. He even begged.

Something is still screaming. His heart, maybe? The whistle glass makes right before it shatters. But he can’t shatter. Not yet.

He sits up. Awkward fingers on the buttons of his jeans, shaking so hard he can’t get them off. Ian slaps his hand away and does it for him. Sinks sharp teeth into his neck.

 _Survival_ , he reminds himself as Ian’s hand dips beneath the waistband of his boxers.

But it feels more like dying.

 

_ _

 

They’ve crossed the border into Colorado and there are mountains lining the horizon beyond their motel. The air is cooler, too, but he doesn’t put a sweater back on because he likes the feel of Usnavi and Vanessa’s fingers on his arms—soft against his bare skin.

The static is back, though, and he can’t sleep. Spends nearly an hour listening to Usnavi’s quiet snores and the whir of the ceiling fan before giving up and slipping out into the night. He chats with Rita at the reception window and charms her into giving him a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke, usually, but tonight he could use the nicotine.

He leans on the railing of the balcony outside their room and watches the moon peek through the clouds, tries not to think about anything at all.

His hands are going numb when the door clicks open and Vanessa joins him, still in her pajamas—hair a messy braid and eyes squinted with sleep. “Ruben?”

He exhales a long plume of smoke. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

She shrugs. “Not really. Rolled over and you were gone.” Her gaze drifts to the cigarette. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow and drapes her arms on the railing, peering up at him. “There’re a lot of things I don’t know about you.”

The guilt churns and he winces. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t an accusation,” she murmurs. “But can I ask a question? You can tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to answer.”

He takes a drag of the cigarette for courage. “Shoot.”

Vanessa straightens, rolls her shoulders back like she’s facing a firing squad. He has the strange, sudden realization that he makes her _nervous_ , which is fucking insane. “This guy, the one with the freaky alternate personality, was he the one who—who hurt you?”

She could mean the scars on his arms, white in the moonlight, but he knows she doesn’t. She’s talking about the first, reflexive flinch he still suffers sometimes when they touch him; about his offer in the parking lot and his apology in the hotel room; about the panic attack he suffered two weeks ago when Vanessa’s fingers dipped below his waistband and skimmed his hip.

He wants to tell her to fuck off. He wants to say yes and leave it there, but she’s looking at him wide-eyed and earnest and he’s close to loving her and he can’t lie.

“It wasn’t like that,” he says and tries not to think about Ian’s hand in his hair or the scrape of rough wood against his knees. “He didn’t …. he didn’t ra—I initiated it. I got—got down on my knees and begged him for it so … it wasn’t.” He takes another drag, cigarette precarious between his timorous fingers.

Vanessa’s gaze is boring into the side of his face. He waits for the condemnation, but she says, “so … you wanted to?”

 _No._ “Yes. I told you. I begged him.”

Vanessa hand covers his. Her voice is careful in a way he’s never heard before. “Ruben, that’s not the same thing.”

He doesn’t know where she’s going with this. “Isn’t it? Blue eyes, nice smile. I was pining after him for years.”

“And what made him change his mind?”

“He didn’t. It was … I fucked Ian, not … not Jason.” He cringes. That probably doesn’t make any sense. He wants something stronger than nicotine.

Vanessa doesn’t pull away. “Why?”

“Does that matter?” he hedges and her fingers slide through his, squeezing hard.

“ _Yes,_ it really does.”

“I…” he doesn’t want to explain it yet. Jamaica, the padlocks on the doors, a belt buckle tearing his back apart, the fear that still has claws hooked into his spine—he doesn’t have words for any of it.

Cliff notes version, he can do that. “I … I needed him to not be mad. To not worry about what else I might be doing.”

It was a bargain, a necessary step in a survival plan, but he still feels filthy right now—can practically see the dirt dripping to the floor.

“But it was my fault,” he continues before Vanessa can say anything. “I-I got on my knees, I started it, I _suggested_ it. So you don’t have to worry about me, okay? It isn’t that bad. I knew what I was doing and I—”

“Ruben,” Vanessa cuts in with a tug on his hand. “Babe, _stop.”_

Her voice is cracking, wet, and when he finally screws up the courage to look at her, he’s shocked to see that her eyes are gleaming.

“I don’t care,” she says and then pauses to take a deep breath. Ruben watches, fascinated and tongue-tied. “If you started it. If you didn’t want it, if _any_ part of you didn’t want it…” her fingers slide up his arm, trace one of the burn scars near the inside of his elbow. “And if you had to do it to keep him from hurting you, then that _isn’t_ consent.”

“Vanessa…”

“I went to a club downtown once,” she continues. “When I was seventeen. Snuck in on a fake id ‘cause I wanted to dance and pick up a cute guy and forget shit with my mother for a while. And I met a cute guy and we danced but when he suggested leaving I changed my mind. Told him, ‘nah, I think I’ll just go home.’ He said, ‘c’mon, one more drink.’ And I was stupid and naïve so I agreed.”

Ruben swallows, staring at the top of her bowed head with horror creeping into his lungs.

“Next thing I know, I’m in the bathroom and he’s got his hand up my dress.”

“Oh God,” Ruben whispers, dropping the cigarette to take her other hand, too. Heartbreak and fury and grief are crashing around inside of him. “Vanessa, did he…?”

“No,” Vanessa says, looking up at him with a grim smile. “Someone came in. Interrupted him. But it still shook me up real bad. Took a long time to sort my shit back out again. Doesn’t matter, though, right? ‘Cause I danced with him and earlier that night I kissed him first. Was even kind of planning to take him home before I changed my mind. So, it was my fault.”

“ _No,”_ Ruben snaps and then freezes, realization hitting like a sucker punch.

Vanessa arches an eyebrow at him and he feels himself crack right down the middle.

“Oh,” he whispers in a very small voice. He’d never thought … all those times on that creaky bed with a scream locked inside of him and Ian’s hands and mouth and—

Vanessa cups his face and presses their foreheads together, uncaring of the tears welling in his eyes. He wraps his arms around her waist, needing her closer, needing to comfort and be comforted—share the weight of this terrible connection between them.

“It was _not_ your fault,” Vanessa says. “It was not your fucking fault, Ruben, you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Say it,” she insists.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he whispers and something shakes free in his chest, lifts from shoulders. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Damn straight,” Vanessa says and hugs him, letting him tremble in her arms. “He’s a fucking bastard. And…” she pulls back, tips her chin up. Again, like she’s ready for a fight, but what she says is, “…and sex is _not_ something you need to give us to make us love you, okay?  We’re pretty much there already.”

Fuck. Fuck.

He sobs and then claps a hand over his mouth to stifle it. She tugs him back in, fingers twisted tight in the back of his shirt, and his heart is too full.

Dimly, he registers the door opening again. Usnavi. He lifts his head from Vanessa’s shoulder and he was going to ask her if Usnavi knows—about the boy and the club bathroom, but the answer is there all over Usnavi’s face: heartbreak, fury, grief, _love._

Of course, of course he knows. Probably has known about Ruben, too. Not the details, but the shape of it—enough to touch him careful and tender; enough to ask first, always: a gentle litany of “is this okay?”

Vanessa shifts to make room and Usnavi fits between them, presses his forehead to Ruben’s temple and breathes “I love you” fierce against his skin.

God. He can’t give them up now. Let Ian and Jason come. He’ll kill before he has to run again, before he has to leave them.

He wraps an arm around Usnavi’s neck and drops his face back to Vanessa’s shoulder—his other arm pressed against Usnavi’s across her back.

They stay like that for a long time, holding each other up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so sorry. 
> 
> Comments, kudos, and any other form of validation are greatly appreciated. :)
> 
> I can also be found over [here](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com), blogging about random crap.
> 
> [It's hot in Topeka.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_IlsPypwZs)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So wow, I really lied about this being only two parts. Whoops. Hopefully it's a good thing, right? (Right?) 
> 
> Warnings are still in full effect for this chapter, but we're turning a corner, I promise. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The sex works. Ian isn’t gentle or kind or considerate (no surprise, really), and Ruben is never quite sure he enjoys it, no matter how much he tries to, but he was right: it’s easier to endure. It allows other, more damaged parts of him to heal, and it’s a more constructive outlet for Ian’s restlessness—calms some of his internal storm. And it’s not like it’s every night. Ian is still focused on the drug above everything else, still pressures him to work harder and faster, but now when he gets impatient there is only the occasional slap or punch for punishment instead of knives or bleach or, in a particularly memorable incident, holding his arm over the gas burner on the stove until he screams.

The hardest part is keeping it from Jason. Ian likes to leave marks bruised deep into Ruben’s skin _everywhere_ and Jason is still insisting on checking his back at least once a day.

“What’s this?” Jason asks one morning, touching a large hickey on Ruben’s neck.

Ruben flinches away and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Jason’s eyes narrow in the mirror. “I told him to stop hurting you.”

He looks pathetic, guilty and powerless, and Ruben almost wants to laugh. “He isn’t. Not as much as before, anyway. It’s fine.”

“Ruben…” Jason stops suddenly and sighs, closing his eyes. “Okay.”

Right. Ruben almost forgot Jason’s new penchant for taking the easy way out. When it comes to what he’s doing to Ruben—the weight Ruben is losing and the exhaustion bending his spine and the flinch that jolts through his body every time Jason touches him—it’s easier for him to bury his head in the sand like a coward.

He’s started saying things like “please eat more” and “I’m not _him,_ Ruben, I swear I won’t hurt you” and “it’s okay, please make sure you’re getting some sleep” as though suddenly caring about his needs will make Ruben grant him absolution.  

Ha.

“Tell me,” he says now, almost pleading. “If he starts hurting you again?”

“Sure,” Ruben lies and lets him finish rubbing disinfect over his back, trying not to shudder beneath his hands.

That night, Ian traces his fingers over the bite. “Jason is worried about you. Left me a long lecture about your wellbeing this afternoon.”

Ruben snorts. “Hypocrite.”

Ian laughs and sinks his teeth into the bruise. Ruben jerks, but doesn’t pull away, even though it fucking _hurts._ There are worse pains, he’s learned.

When Ian leans back, he’s smirking. “Should I tell him? The look on his face would be hilarious.”

Ruben forces a smile and rolls over, sinking into Ian’s lap. “Not yet. He’d just ruin it.”

Ian’s hands settle on his hips like brands, fingers digging right to the bone. “You’re right. He’s a fucking monk. Besides,” another smirk, dirtier than before, sharp as a blade, “you like this, don’t you, Rubes?”

“Yes,” Ruben lies and grinds down. Ian’s eyes are nearly black in the dim light of the room—like they always appear right before a transition. He likes this, maybe even likes Ruben, if the way he keeps staring at Ruben’s mouth is any indication, and Ruben can feel him bending, slowly.

Just a little more and he’ll have him. Just a little more. 

_ _

 

Their route leads them straight through the Rocky Mountains and they all take turns hanging out the windows to gape at the scenery and snap blurry pictures of the snow-capped peaks.

In the Rio Grande National Forest, they take a detour up Highway 149 and stop by North Clear Creek Falls. It’s flowing fast, buoyed by melting snow from the mountains, and Ruben can feel the roar of it echo in his own chest.

“I’ve never seen a real-life waterfall before,” Usnavi says, leaning far enough over the railing that Vanessa grabs the back of his shirt. “It’s _huge_. But then, tiny, compared to something like Niagara. We should definitely make our next trip Niagara Falls.”

“Sure, babe,” Vanessa says, adjusting his hat. She looks a little nervous about being essentially on the edge of a cliff so Ruben takes her hand, squeezing it tight. Her lips quirk in a grateful smile.

They end up eating lunch with a family on an RV trip. Ruben thought that all of those weird family comedies about RV trips were stereotypes, but these people look they just stepped out of one: fanny packs and visors and God-awful shirts that remind him uncomfortably of the crap Jason used to bring back in Jamaica.

They’re apparently homeschooling their five(!) children and spending a year touring the United States in their RV, which sounds like a strange kind of hell to Ruben. They’re loud and overly friendly and they trip a little on Usnavi’s name, but they’re nice enough. They ask if Ruben and Usnavi are twins, which leads to some awkward coughing. Vanessa, goddamn her, smirks and says, “yep.”

Then she slings her arms over their shoulders and kisses each of them on the cheek. The RV people look very confused and Ruben kind of wants a sinkhole to spontaneously open beneath their picnic table, but fortunately they breeze on to other topics. The RV people have just come from out west and so jot down a list of things to see in California that Usnavi pockets with a polite nod.

“Do you want us to take your picture?” RV Wife asks, gesturing at the falls, and Vanessa hands over her phone.

She ends up taking ten pictures and doing the stupid “one, two, three, say cheese!” thing but she gets some good shots, Ruben has to admit.

He still thinks they look good together: Vanessa in pigtail braids and sunglasses, Usnavi’s smile crinkling his eyes—hat askew and red shirt bright against the tan of his skin. And you can barely see Ruben’s scars.

They thank the RV people and pile back into Louise, laughing quietly to themselves.

“A whole year,” Usnavi says, shaking his head. “Can you believe that? I mean, I would murder Sonny and they have _two_ teenagers.”

“White people are so weird,” Vanessa mutters. “Those kids looked like hell demons.”

“And me and Ruben. _Twins_?” Usnavi shudders.

“No, that one makes sense.”

“Va _nessa_!”

Ruben snickers and guides Louise onto the highway.

_ _

 

He has a plan—a vague and probably terrible one, but he’ll take what he can get. Last night, Ian actually fell asleep in the bed and Ruben stole a moment to look at the phone lying discarded in his jeans. One of those cheap flip ones, prepaid and probably purchased with cash from a stand in a local market.

But it had a date displayed on the front and if that date was right, they’ve been here for nearly _four months._ Ruben almost dropped the phone in shock. He had thought, logically, that a lot of time must have passed, but it was something else to be confronted with the reality of it.

Four fucking months. Had his family had a funeral? Or were they still looking? A missing person report and an investigation slowly going cold, pushed further and further back on the police’s priority list until they tell his mother that there is nothing more they can do. Pray your son comes home or that they find a body. Steel yourself for a long wait.

He wiped a hand over his stinging eyes and put the phone back. Let Ian fuck him a second time that night and used the pain to punish himself—recompense for breaking his mother’s heart.

But he has a plan. He still can’t figure out a kill drug, but he knows how to make Blackout blindfolded and he can cobble it together pretty easily from the supplies he has. He just needs to fend off Ian and Jason for a few days and hope they don’t figure it out. He’s gotten good at lying, though, so he thinks he can pull it off.

That’s step one: _Blackout as strong as he can make it._

If it kills them than that automatically takes care of step two. If it doesn’t…

Step two _: finish them off._

A knife to the femoral or carotid artery—they’ll bleed out in less than five minutes and he can claim self-defense. Blackout is untraceable and all he has to do is show the police his own wounds.

It’s the only way. He’s run it through his head a million times and it’s the only way he goes free. Leave them alive and one or both of them will chase him to the ends of the fucking earth. A major artery will be quick and they won’t feel anything.

It’s the best he can give them (and probably more than they deserve).

Step three: _get the hell out of the house._

He’s searched, surreptitiously, for the key to the padlock, but he can’t find where Jason/Ian is hiding it. If they’re going to leave the house, he has to shut himself in a closet or the bedroom until they’re gone. It’s not on their person, at least, and once they’re dead he’ll have more time to search. If he can’t find the key, he has enough ingredients to mix up a pretty powerful acid to melt the padlock and the chain. He’s assessed it on the rare times he’s been left alone and the quality of the metal isn’t great. He should be able to get through it in less than a minute if need be.

And if for some reason _that_ fails, the frame of one of the windows in the living room is pretty much rotted through. He should be able to break the glass and make a hole large enough to climb out of.

Step four: _get his satchel._

He’s pretty sure Ian/Jason have it stashed under the porch. It’s not in the house (he even spent an afternoon ripping up loose floorboards and suffered for it: tied naked to the bed with ropes tight enough to scour his wrists while Ian slashed cuts across his trembling thighs, parting his legs to dip far too close to intimate areas for comfort) and it’s too much work to go out and bury it somewhere. Plus the risk of a local stumbling across it or wildlife unearthing it.

So: porch.

Step five: _take the car._

He’s also fairly certain that Jason/Ian keep the car keys _in_ the actual car—tapped to the sun visor. It’s a rusting Oldsmobile, falling apart at the seams, but it should get him to the nearest town.

Step six: _figure out where the fuck he is, exactly._

He has no idea how long Ian drove that first night. They’re in the middle of fucking nowhere right now, but that could mean thirty miles from the nearest big city or a hundred. And he needs a big city, preferably Montego Bay where this whole clusterfuck started.

Better police force there, more used to dealing with international travelers and foreigners. More of a chance that they’ll believe his story (or even have a picture of him in a database somewhere) and contact the US embassy/authorities.

Step seven: _go home._

And hold his family for a very long time and probably never let them out of his sight ever again. There will be questions—probably several interrogations and some media coverage if the whole sordid story gets out. He has to admit it’s the stuff of a fucking TV drama: crazed neurosurgeon kidnaps colleague and holds him hostage in a rundown house in rural Jamaica for months while forcing him to make illegal drugs.

Yeah, he would pick up that newspaper. And probably think someone was making the whole thing up in an effort to rip off Breaking Bad.

Hopefully, they’ll buy self-defense. Ian bought a drink on the plane and less than twenty-four hours before that, Connie saw “Dr. Jason Cole” choking the life out of him in the lab—there’s a definite trail. And then there’s the security cam footage that’s probably lurking around somewhere of “Dr. Jason Cole” strapping him to a gurney and forcibly ramming a dialysis needle in into his arm then writing on the fall in his _fucking blood._

He might have erased that, actually, per Jason’s request. He can’t remember.

It doesn’t matter, though, because now there is also his body with its map-work of scars and still-healing wounds—some of which would be really hard to self-inflict.

And Ian/Jason won’t be around to defend themselves.

Which leaves step eight: _figure out how to start living again._

He tries not to think about that one too much.

Not just because there is at least a seventy-three percent chance that this plan is going to blow up in his face and get him killed. Of all the steps, that one seems the most impossible. He’s shattered to bloody pieces in the past four months and he has no idea how to glue himself back into a person.

What he looked like before this is another thing he can’t remember.

_ _

 

Arizona is hot enough to kill and the air conditioning in Louise has busted. They’re all sweating buckets, even with the windows rolled down. In the backseat, Vanessa’s actually stripped to her bra. Usnavi nearly crashed the car when she first took her tank top off, gaping at her in the rearview mirror, and she glared imperiously at him.

Ruben has to admit that it’s a little … distracting. So is the fact that Usnavi has _also_ taken both his over shirt and tank top off and is _very_ shirtless and tan and _ugh._

Vanessa pokes him with her foot. “Aren’t you dying?”

He is. He’s slowly suffocating and it’s awful, but. They haven’t seen his back yet. He’s guarded those scars like a careful secret and he’s terrified of the disgust that might cross their faces when they see them.

But he’s also _dying._

“Okay,” he decides. “Please don’t say anything.”

“Can I whistle?” Usnavi asks with a grin. “’Cause I’ve been waiting to do that.”

 _You won’t want to, trust me,_ Ruben doesn’t say. Just takes a deep breath and yanks his sticky shirt over his head.

The lash scars start below the waistband of his shorts and curve over his shoulders. Some of them are thick and raised enough that he’s been worried Vanessa and Usnavi can feel them through his shirt when they hug him or hold him. He avoids looking at them in the mirror, if he can help it, and while he hates all of the scars Ian left on him, these are the only ones that really make him feel _ugly._

Damaged. Ruined.

Vanessa sucks in a sharp, stunned breath and Usnavi’s eyes are wide when he glances over. The seat covers the worst of it, but still. He’s wound tighter than a tripwire, seconds away from opening the door and throwing himself out of the damn car. The silence is holding, gaining weight, and _fuck, fuck this was a terrible idea they hate you now they won’t ever want to touch you again you’re a fucking mess—_

“Yep,” Usnavi says at last and the cheer in his voice sounds a little forced, but Ruben appreciates the effort. “You’re fucking sexy.”

And he lifts a hand to his mouth and whistles, loud and shrill, dark eyes dancing. And Ruben …

Ruben fucking loves him.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Vanessa says and doesn’t touch him and he fucking loves her, too. “You are. Always have been.”

Ruben sniffs, overwhelmed yet again, and reaches for the radio to distract himself. It’s another pop station. Katy Perry, he thinks.

“Ugh,” Vanessa groans. “Change the station.”

“Do _not,”_ Usnavi counters and starts singing at the top of his lungs. “California girls, we’re undeniable. Fine, fresh, fierce, we’ve got it unlocked. West Coast represent, now put your hands up…”

Vanessa groans again, burying her face in the seat cushion, but Ruben takes the opportunity to steal her phone and film. Usnavi winks at him without breaking stride and suddenly the heat and his scars don’t matter anymore—obliterated by Usnavi’s infectious, unabashed enthusiasm.

 _“_ Tone, tan, fit, and ready. Turn it up ‘cause it’s gettin’ heavy. Wild, wild West Coast, these are the girls I love the most…”

Ruben puts the phone down as Usnavi keeps rapping (how he knows all the words to this, Ruben isn’t going to ask) and sticks his head out the window to let the dry desert wind ruffle his hair, closing his eyes against the bright glare of the sun.

 

_ _

 

“Can you, like, go out or something tonight?”

Ruben doesn’t look up as he says it, carefully adjusting the burner beneath a vial bubbling with yellow liquid.

Ian frowns at him, feet propped up on the table and arms crossed over his chest—carefully relaxed, like a lion right before it lunges out of the bushes for prey and nope, he is not continuing with that metaphor if he wants to keep his hands steady.

“Why?”

“I need space. You hovering like this all the time is distracting.”

“Space,” Ian repeats, sounding incredulous. “You want me to give you _space._ What are we, Rubes, an old married couple?”

“Essentially,” Ruben mutters under his breath and then dares a glance at Ian. He doesn’t look mad yet. “Please? Just for one night. It’ll help me be more productive and … and you can make me pay for it later.”

Ian’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Nothing!” Ruben insists, taking off his protective glasses. “I just can’t _think_ with you sitting there staring at me. It’s been _weeks_ and all you do is pace and stare at me and hit me when I screw up, which makes me screw up _more,_ by the way, and I want to get the drug to work as much as you do because I want my fucking _life back,_ but I can’t _think_ and please, it’s just for one night. I haven’t tried anything else since that one attempt, I haven’t. I just want to work in peace and see if I can get a breakthrough. Please?”

It’s more than he meant to say and he braces himself for Ian to surge to his feet—for a hand around his throat or a fist in his ribs—but Ian just looks at him for a long moment with arched eyebrows, halfway, it seems, between amused and impressed.

When he does get up it’s slow, deliberate, and Ruben curls in on himself protectively. Ian rounds the table and pats his cheek, rough, but not enough to really hurt.  

“All right, Rubes. One night. You’d better have something for me tomorrow.”

Ruben nods, shoulders still hunched, and Ian bends down for a kiss—searing and possessive, full of teeth. The kisses are a new development. Hopefully a good one.

(Ian likes his mouth.)

“Be good,” Ian says and nods in the direction of the hall closet. “You know the drill.”

Ruben waits, huddled in the dark, listening to the loud click of the padlock, the rattle of the chains unwinding, the door creaking open, then closed, and finally the clatter of Ian securing the chains back on the outside.

He emerges only after he hears the car rumble down the drive and pauses in the middle of the kitchen to collect himself.

( _Uno, dos, tres, respira.)_

Once the nervous quiver in his fingers has died down, he crosses back to the chemistry set and takes the vial off the burner. Starts a mental clock in his head: seven or so hours until Ian returns.

He can make a batch of Blackout in that time.

_ _

 

“Oh my _god,_ ” Usnavi says, turning in a slow circle. “I feel so _tiny_.”

The Grand Canyon yawns before them, the only thing visible for miles. Chasms carved so deep in the earth that the rivers seem like tiny slivers of blue below them. The rock is red in the summer sun, like it’s caught on fire or been transplanted from Mars, and it’s strange but this barren earth is one of the most beautiful things Ruben has ever laid eyes on. 

“You can see it from space, you know,” he says. “It looks like veins on a satellite picture.”

“I believe it,” Vanessa says. She hasn’t come all the way down to the railing, content to sit on the stone steps and take pictures from afar.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Ruben continues. “That water can make scars on the earth like this.”

His mother would call this another miracle. Looking at it now, he’s inclined to agree with her.

“It is,” Usnavi says, twining their fingers together on the railing. “Tan hermosa _._ ”

Ruben squeezes his hand tight, blindsided by the sudden realization that he’s fucking _alive._ It still hits him now and then: that he survived. That for all of his scars and jagged edges and in spite of everything he still doesn’t know how to put into words, he’s here. He fucking made it.

It wells in him now, crackling along his nerves and down his spine. A pulse of: _alive, alive, alive, alive._

Before he can overthink it, he cups a hand to the side of his mouth and yells, loud as he can. It echoes, bouncing from rock to rock in a slow descent, until the canyon finally swallows the last remnants.

Usnavi grins at him. “Good idea.”

And then he’s yelling, too, and Ruben is yelling with him. They must look like a pair of idiots, standing there holding hands and shouting over the edge. But it’s cathartic in a way he can’t explain and after a few minutes, Vanessa joins them with a loud _whoop._

They scream themselves hoarse, side by side by side, and wait in silence until the echoes fade. Usnavi kisses his shoulder—a wordless declaration of support—and Ruben squeezes his hand again in reply, feeling empty and full all at once. A strange kind of exhausted joy.

At the gift shop later, Vanessa insists on buying him a book full of cool scientific facts about the Grand Canyon and he, in turn, gets them both tacky keychains. Usnavi has been steadily collecting post cards that he plans on pinning up in the bodega and he purchases four here because he can’t decide which one he likes best.

They take a picture before leaving—the sun setting at their backs, casting the hills gold and their faces in shadow. Vanessa and Usnavi’s cheeks pressed against his on either side.

He adds it to his growing collection. They’re the first pictures, he’s realized, that he’s had of himself in over a year and half and the first ones in far longer that aren’t of family.

Maybe, just maybe, if he’s feeling bold and hopeful enough, he’ll get them framed back in New York.

 

_ _

 

He has the vial of Blackout hidden in the back of the fridge. It was a bitch trying to change the coloring to something less obvious than the usual dark liquid but he managed. Jason’s made dinner (he still burns everything, but Ruben doesn’t care) and they’re scrunched at the end of the kitchen table, surrounded on all sides by vials and notebooks and equipment.

It’s the last dinner they’re ever going to have together and Ruben hates the sharp twinge in his chest at the thought. Hates that he still can’t look at Jason and feel anger—only a deep, bone aching sorrow.

“I think I’m getting close,” he says, stitching on a weak smile. “Might have something new to test tomorrow.”

Jason nods. “That’s great news, Ruben.” A pregnant, awkward pause. “Thank you, for all of your hard work.”

Ruben shrugs. “Not like I’ve had a choice, right?”

Jason cringes. Covers it by taking a big bite of his rice. “I was thinking of going into town tomorrow. Is there anything you’d like?”

This is another thing he’s started doing: bringing back presents, like Ruben is some kind of kept girl. Chocolate, other assorted sweets, a few nice shirts, coffee, a puzzle at one point, a rubix cube at another.  Ruben has accepted them as graciously as possible, knowing better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Now, he puts down his fork and levels Jason with an even stare. He may not be able to hate him, no matter how fiercely he wants to, but he needs Jason to know this.

“Jason,” he keeps his voice calm, too. Devoid of emotion. “I am never going to forgive you for doing this to me.”

Jason reels, visibly flinching. His face twists into a desperate grimace. “Ruben…”

“Never,” Ruben reiterates. “No matter what you do.”

Jason slumps in defeat and nods, exhaustion written deep in the haggard curve of his shoulders. “I understand.”

“Good,” Ruben mutters and goes back to his overcooked rice.

They finish the rest of dinner in heavy silence. Ruben has nothing left to say.

 

_ _

 

It’s dark by the time they reach Las Vegas. By mutual agreement, they all decide to just drive Louise down the strip and keep going. Gambling doesn’t appeal to any of them and Ruben feels ill at the thought of being around so many people and bright lights and noise. He’s gotten used to the contained chaos of Washington Heights and, in the past few days, the bubble of Louise, Vanessa, and Usnavi.

“I’d feel out of place, anyway,” Usnavi says with a shrug. “Too much glitz and shit.”

Vanessa nods in agreement. “I’d feel too cheap to even stand in the lobby of one of those casinos.”

“Great. Straight shot through, then.”

Ruben is behind the wheel. It’s a Friday night, which means traffic is crawling, but it gives Usnavi and Vanessa plenty of time to take in the sights.

“So much fucking neon,” Vanessa mutters, peering out the back window. The array of lights cast a rainbow of colors across her face, making her look like almost like a painting, ethereal.

“Yeah,” Usnavi agrees, craning his head to see the signs passing overhead. “I think I like it better in the movies. It’s kinda … tacky. Grand Canyon was way better.”

Ruben smiles quietly to himself, amused at how unimpressed they both are. He supposes that once you’ve lived in a city as complicated and vibrant and pulsing as New York, everything else fades in comparison. He certainly feels that way and he’s lived in a hell of a lot of cities over the years.

“Maybe it only works if you have fancy clothes and are here to rob something,” Vanessa says.

Usnavi laughs. “You’d look great in an Ocean movie.”

“She’s the only one who could pull it off,” Ruben says, winking at Vanessa in the rearview mirror. “We’d just look like schlubs.”

“Damn right, I could pull it off,” Vanessa says, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

This prompts Usnavi to twist around in the seat to capture a “movie shot,” which is apparently Vanessa with her sunglasses on looking out the window. It turns out fucking good—the neon reflected in the dark lenses making her seem mysterious. Of course, the next shot is her sticking out her tongue at Usnavi, nose all crinkled up, but Ruben thinks they’re both perfect.

Usnavi giggles delightedly over the photos and saves them. This all feels a bit like a dream to Ruben: the city, the lights, these two people he still can’t believe have decided to love him.

He half expects to wake up back at the house in Jamaica.

Any minute now.

 

_ _

 

“So, you think this will work?” Ian demands, rolling up his sleeve.

Ruben extracts Blackout with a syringe and surprisingly steady hands. “I don’t know.”

“Ruben…”

“Yes! We can try it at least, right?”

Ian glares at him but holds out his arm. Ruben’s heart is beating so hard and fast in his chest, he’s amazed that Ian can’t hear it, that it isn’t showing through his skin. He feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, about to step off into a void. Fly or fall, sink or swim, live or die—it all begins here.

“Do it, then,” Ian says, fisting his free hand in the stretched collar of Ruben’s shirt.

Ruben takes a deep breath, prays to the God his mother always insisted was capable of miracles, and slides the needle into Ian’s skin. For a moment, nothing happens—the whole world stands fucking still—and then Ian’s eyes widen in furious realization.

“You little _bitch,”_ he snarls. “What the fuck did you give me?”

Ruben tries to twist out of his grip, but Ian holds strong. Manages to slam him against the table. Glass breaks everywhere, digs into Ruben’s skin. He grits his teeth through the pain and plants a foot in Ian’s stomach, sending him staggering backwards.

“I’ll kill you,” Ian snaps as he struggles to maintain his balance. “You piece of shit, come back here.”

Ruben rolls off the table, hitting the glass-strewn floor on his hands and knees, and manages to scramble out of Ian’s reach. Fuck, it should be working by now. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Ian lunges for him again, but he’s clumsy, slowing down and Ruben is able to dodge him. Blood is dripping to the floor in bright splashes—little cuts everywhere. He has glass in his palms and knees and he needs a fucking weapon.

Ian is still hurling obscenities at him, but his voice is starting to slur. Another lurching step and he snags fingers in the back of Ruben’s shirt, dragging him down. Ruben tries to catch himself on the table but only ends up knocking more glass off it as they crash to the floor. Some liquid splashes onto his arm and _burns._ He channels the pain, kicking Ian in the ribs as hard as he can.

Something _cracks._ Ian yells. Finally, _finally_ goes limp, collapsing into a heap.

Ruben crabwalks backwards, out of reach. Waits for a heaving breath, two, but Ian doesn’t stir. Seems to be out cold.

“Fuck,” Ruben hiccups into the empty room and stands on jelly legs, almost dizzy with leftover adrenaline.

His heart is still beating rabbit-fast and his hands are shaking, but step one is complete. He stumbles over to the sink and rinses off his arm—another scar to add to the collection. Takes a moment to dig the worst of the glass out of his hands. No time to bandage them. He made Blackout as strong as he could, but there’s no guarantee that it will keep Ian down for long.

Step two, then.

He fumbles with the drawers until he finds the knife one. Neither Jason nor Ian ever thought to lock it up. That scared little Ruben would actually fight back probably never even crossed their minds.

He picks a long, sharp one and kneels next to Ian’s prone form. Straight in the carotid artery, one quick stab. He’ll bleed out in four minutes, five at the most, and this nightmare will finally be over.

Ruben takes a deep breath. His fingers are still quivering, making it difficult to keep the blade steady. Ian’s chest is rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep and there are cuts on his face from the glass, like the night at the club when they jumped through the window and—

_Stop fucking thinking. Just do it already._

A stuttering inhale that burns at his lungs. He presses the knife to the fragile skin of Ian’s neck. One quick stab. One quick stab and then it’s over. Just push it the fuck _in._ He chose Ian because it would be easier to do this to him than Jason. Ian’s marks are all over his body, Ian’s scars will stay with him forever, and that should be enough to hate him—to drive the knife in and sit back and watch his life spill all over the floor without an ounce of remorse.

But Ruben _can’t._

_You fucking coward. Do it. Come on!_

The tip pierces flesh. A trickle of blood. Ruben’s hand won’t move any further.

He can’t. God, he _can’t._

“Fuck!” he snarls in frustration, rocking back on his heels and dropping the knife. “ _Fuck.”_

He’s such a fucking coward. He can’t go through with it—doesn’t want to be a killer, even though this is going to damn him forever.

_You idiot. You goddamn idiot._

“Shut up,” he mutters to the screaming voice in his brain and clambers back to his feet.

He’s going to regret this, he knows it, but there isn’t time to dwell now. He could have minutes.

He doesn’t bother with the padlocked door—goes straight for the window with his hand wrapped in a towel. The frail glass breaks with two good hits, though it takes longer to work the rotting wood free. He cuts himself again, climbing through the narrow opening—a long scrape across his stomach that he's too numb from adrenaline to feel—and lands in an undignified heap in the dirt outside.

For a moment he lies there, stunned and shaking, breathing in his first mouthfuls of fresh air in weeks.

He’s outside.He's actually outside. Holy _shit._  

 _Porch,_ the voice snaps impatiently. _Satchel. Move it._

Right.

It’s dark, but unlike his first escape attempt, the moon is almost full tonight, bathing everything in an eerie silver glow. It’s just enough light to see by as he pries up the loose steps of the porch and peers inside.

Bingo. Satchel—shoved in the shadows near the back. He has to wiggle nearly his whole arm in to reach it, but he manages. Gets it free in one swift yank. Inside: wallet, passport, old notebooks - all intact. His phone is gone, but he was expecting that. He touches his passport with reverent fingers, eyes burning, and then loops the satchel over his shoulder.

The car is parked across the small yard, facing the long, dirt road that winds into the cane fields. He jogs to it and wrenches the creaking door open. Overhead, the sky is an explosion of stars and he pauses to take it in—the most beautiful fucking thing he’s ever seen. The earth around him smells like the aftermath of rain and he breathes that in, too, tasting freedom on his dry, aching tongue.

_Keep moving._

He climbs into the car, pulls the door shut behind him. The keys are taped to the sun visor, just as he predicted, and he laughs in mirthless, slightly hysterical triumph.

The roar of the engine starting is as beautiful as the sky was. He curls timorous, blood-smeared fingers over the wheel and throws the car in drive.

He doesn’t look back as the house slowly fades from view and only when he feels wetness on his cheeks does he realize that he’s crying.

_ _

 

They stop by the side of the road in the middle of the Nevada desert—no sign of civilization in view.

“Just for a minute,” Usnavi says as they all climb out of the car. “Look at the _sky.”_

Ruben tilts his head back, blinks up at the riot of stars spread out overhead, bright against the black night.

“It’s beautiful,” Vanessa murmurs, awed.

“Yeah.” Usnavi takes his hand. “Have you ever seen stars like this before?”

“Once,” Ruben whispers and is shocked to feel tears blurring his eyes, slipping down his face.

“That gorgeous, huh?” Vanessa tease gently when she notices.

He laughs, wet, and shakes his head. Wipes a hand across his cheeks. There is so much he needs to tell them, but it can wait. For now, he rests his head against Usnavi’s and drinks in the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, kudos, and any other forms of validation are greatly appreciated! :)
> 
> Feel free to hit me up over on [tumblr](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com), too.


	4. Chapter 4

“Pull over!” Vanessa yells, leaning out the passenger window and pointing.

Ruben hits the breaks and guides Louise onto the shoulder, stopping right in front of the big green road sign.

_Welcome to California._

Unsavi cheers from the backseat. They’re all sweaty and stiff and little sick of Louise, but they valiantly stumble out to take a picture. Vanessa designates herself as photographer, waving them over to the sign, and Ruben lets out a little huff when Usnavi jumps onto his back.

They’re both wearing thin tank tops and Ruben has a brief moment of _shit scars he can feel the scars_ before Usnavi leans down and very maturely blows a raspberry into his neck. Spit somehow lands _in_ his ear and he jerks, nearly dropping Usnavi.

“Mother _fucker.”_

Usnavi laughs and just like that Ruben isn’t thinking about the scars anymore. Maybe Usnavi plans these things? Probably. Part of the Usnavi’s constant ability to see right through him like his walls are made of transparent paper.

“I’m getting you back for that,” he warns.

Usnavi’s chin lands on his shoulder and his arms are carefully loose around Ruben’s neck. “Sure. But right now I think Vanessa’s taking very unflattering photos.”

A glance at Vanessa confirms that she’s holding up her phone and snickering. She arches an eyebrow when she notices them looking. “What? You two’re cute.”

“I’m cute, he’s annoying,” Ruben corrects.

“Please, you love me,” Usnavi says confidently and slides back to the ground.

“Yeah,” Ruben blurts before he can stop himself and then pulls Usnavi’s hat over his face in hopes of distracting him from that admission.

But Usnavi just shoves the cap back up, lips parted in silent surprise and big eyes full of dawning hope.  “You love me?”

Shit. Well, there’s no backing down now, is there?

He forces himself not to fidget or look away when he says, “Yes.”

Usnavi’s grin is brighter than the sun overhead, consuming half his face and digging deep crow’s feet into the corners of his eyes. Ruben feels a little bit like he’s been hit by a car, knocked out between one breath and the next.

“You love me,” Usnavi repeats, not bothering to hide his giddiness.

“God help me,” Ruben mutters, but he can feel a helpless, affectionate smile tugging at his mouth.

Vanessa flicks him on the back of the head. “And what am I, Marcado? Chopped liver?”

He turns to face her. She’s doing her best to seem aloof, but her finger is tapping a restless beat against her phone—a habit he suspects she picked up from Usnavi.

“Vanessa Otilia García,” he says, trying to keep his expression neutral and his voice solemn, “you are the light of my life and I love you more than anything on this earth. Except maybe Usnavi. Maybe.”

She snorts and gives him a light shove, rolling her eyes. But he can totally see her lips twitching.

(It helps, making a joke of it. If he admitted everything they’ve become to them, he’d break open and it wouldn’t be pretty. Better this for now—until he’s ready to rip more holes in his armor.)

“Whatever, Marcado,” Vanessa says, still fighting a smile. “Give me the keys. It’s my turn to drive. You two can make heart eyes at each other in the back seat or something.”

Ruben makes an exaggerated gagging noise as he hands over the keys, which earns him a playful shove from Usnavi. Followed by a kiss on the cheek that is sickeningly sweet and makes him flush.

God, he’s turning into a total sap. It’s amazing.

_ _

 

He can’t go back to Montego Bay now that he’s shot his Grand Master Plan out of the fucking water. So he drives east, winding his way towards Kingston. The sky is paling by the time he reaches the city limits—gold and pink creeping into the blue. He ditches the car in a random parking lot and buys a fresh set of clothes from a shop several blocks away.

The elderly owner stares at him warily when he brings his purchases to the register and asks if he needs a hospital. Or the police.

“No,” Ruben tries to assure him. “But do you have a bathroom?”

The man fishes a key out from behind the counter and points towards the back. It’s little more than a closet with a toilet and a sink and Ruben awkwardly locks the door behind him, squeezing into the small space. As he turns back to pick up the clothes, he catches sight of himself in the grimy mirror and freezes.

Fuck, no wonder the man mentioned the police. His clothes are spotted with blood and he’s got small cuts all over his face and down his neck; along his exposed arms, all the way down to his hands.

Like he jumped out a window or something.

He shudders and pulls his ruined shirt off. Cleans away the lingering blood and dirt as best he can and spends an extra ten minutes picking more bits of glass out of his knees and calves. He looks a little better with clean clothes on—a little less like he wandered off the set of a horror movie and more like a car accident victim

He can go with that, if anyone asks.

He returns the key to the owner with a grateful smile and asks directions to the airport. The man is still frowning at him—asks one more time if he needs to call the police.

“No, please, I’m okay,” Ruben says. “I just need to get to the airport.”

The man scribbles him directions on an old receipt and wishes him good luck. He discards his bloody clothes in the trash outside and sets as brisk a pace as possible with his various aches and pains, keeping his head down.

He needs to get off this damn island. A hundred odd miles between him and Ian/Jason isn’t nearly enough.

_ _

 

They trade the seemingly endless desert for the natural skyscrapers of the Sequoia National Forest. This has been an item on Ruben’s bucket list for years and seeing them now, he feels a wave of reverence sweep over him. Like he’s stepped into another world and is now walking among sleeping giants.

“Okay,” Usnavi says when they stop near one called General Sherman, “me feeling tiny is definitely turning into a running theme.”

Ruben puts his palm flat against the rough bark. “This tree is over two thousand years old. It’s the largest living organism on the _planet,_ by volume.”

“Wow,” Vanessa says, staring up into the massive branches overhead. “Two thousand years?”

“Uh-huh. Sequoias are the third-oldest species of tree in the world. The President over there is three thousand years old.”

He wonders what this forest looked like three thousand years ago, long before conquerors came from faraway seas. Before Rome and the collapse of the Egyptian Empire, when Saul was king of Israel and the Mayans were expanding their farmlands and the Celts dominated Britain. These trees have stood through the dawns and dusks of dozens of civilizations—will probably stay standing long after humanity is gone. It makes his own life feel like a mere flicker and he doesn’t know why, but he finds that comforting.

Usnavi pokes him in the shoulder, startling him. “You’ve got your ‘contemplative science face,’ on. What are you thinking about? Do you need a moment alone with the tree?”

Ruben shakes his head, a little thrown off-balance by the fact that he apparently has a ‘contemplative science face’ and he’s used enough for Usnavi to recognize it. “Just trying to quantify three thousand years.”

“Don’t,” Vanessa says, also trailing her fingers over the tree. “It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I can’t imagine living to eighty, let alone three thousand.”

“It would be lonely, wouldn’t it?” Usnavi says. “At least all of these trees live to be old. They have company.”

Ruben laughs quietly at that. Only Usnavi.

“So, what else’ve you got?” Vanessa says. “Tell me more about them.”

This also throws him off-balance. He’s used to glazed expressions when he starts rambling about science, even from similar minds like Jason, but Usnavi and Vanessa are looking at him expectantly.

“Okay, well … they have the thickest bark on earth, over two feet thick near the base on some of them, and the bark doesn’t have any flammable elements at all, which means that they’re awesome at withstanding forest fires…”

He keeps talking as they walk, running through his metal encyclopedia of cool facts, and Usnavi and Vanessa only stop him to ask follow-up questions or make impressed noises and it’s _good._

He feels good. Appreciated. Worth something.

They do that so easily—it still takes him by surprise.

“Okay,” Usnavi says as they head back towards the parking lot a few hours later. “We have to hug at least one tree before we go.”

“Weirdo,” Vanessa huffs, but doesn’t disagree.

They choose the President (“Because it’s the oldest and has therefore been through the most and so deserves love and attention. Keep up, Vanessa.”) and press themselves against the bark, arms thrown out wide. The three of them barely encompass one small section of the tree, not even close to half its circumference.

And it’s stupid, sentimental, but Ruben imagines that if he presses his ear hard enough to the bark, he’ll be able to hear a faint heart beating—life, enduring through thousands of years, in spite of all the odds.

_ _

 

When he finally gets to the airport, he selects the first U.S. destination on the departure list—Miami, taking off in an hour and a half.

The starched attendant at the counter gives him the same wary look, but books him a ticket. He spends the flight jumping at shadows, pressed against the window and seeing Ian out of the corner of his eye every few seconds.

In Miami, he pulls the same trick and ends up on a flight to Austin. In Austin, he decides he can’t handle another plane. He’s been awake for over twenty-four hours and he can barely stand.

Over fifteen hundred miles now and he’s still not sure he’s far enough away.

He exits the airport into a muggy evening—summer storms hanging in the air. Runs a mental checklist through his head of what he needs to do.

  1. Withdraw a chunk of his savings, transfer the rest to his mother, and close his account.
  2. Buy a hot meal, some more clothes, and a decent backpack.
  3. Call his mother and tell her a) that he’s alive and b) to get the hell out of Philadelphia if she hasn’t already.
  4. Sleep, probably.
  5. Keep moving.



The banks are all closed now, so he settles for a twenty-four-hour diner and a hot meal. The hamburger tastes like ash in his mouth, which is a disappointment, if not surprising. He starts to fall asleep in the booth halfway through it, head pillowed on his aching arms. A waitress eventually prods him awake, jumping back in alarm when he jerks upright and reaches instinctively for his fork to defend himself.

Then she gets a carefully sympathetic expression on her face and asks if there is anyone she can call for him.

“No,” he mumbles and pays for his unfinished meal.

He spends the rest of the night wandering the city and stealing naps on various park benches. The sky opens up a few hours before dawn so he switches to huddling under awnings until shopkeepers start to glare.

At last, the bank opens and he walks dripping up to the counter. It takes surprisingly little fanfare to sort everything out. No police alerts or freezes, even though the account has sat relatively inactive for four months (his damn phone bill is still coming out), and he’s not sure whether to feel relieved or alarmed by this. It definitely means they stopped looking. Or maybe they always assumed he just fucked off to Jamaica and disappeared on purpose.

He’s not going to read into it right now.

He leaves the bank with a few thousand dollars in his bag and a wallet full of now defunct credit cards. Only breathes easy when he’s several blocks away without any wail of approaching police sirens or someone running after him.

Okay. He can do this. 

_ _

 

They splurge a little in Carmel and spend the night at a boutique hotel—a private balcony and the sea breeze rustling the gossamer curtains. Ruben lets them lay him out on the massive bed and kiss all of the thoughts out of his head. Usnavi pushes his shirt up to run hot fingers over his stomach and Vanessa tilts his chin so she can curl her tongue into his mouth and it’s _good—_ desire sparking down his spine, the fear settling somewhere quiet. Unobtrusive.

He feels bold, reckless, _loved,_ and he guides Usnavi’s hand to his hip before he can second guess himself.

Usnavi looks up at him, searching. “Yeah?”

Ruben nods. “Yeah.”

Usnavi kisses his neck, no hint of teeth - murmurs "fuck, you're beautiful" as he slides his hand lower, lower, until _oh._ Ruben shivers, spreads his legs a little more to give Usnavi room, and loses himself between them: Usnavi’s fingers carefully pulling down his boxers and Vanessa’s lips back on his.

He waits for the fear, but it doesn’t come, just the desire swiftly fanning into a flame.

He’s okay.

He’s safe. He’s _safe._

_ _

 

He calls his mother from a dirty phone booth, three streets over from the bus station. He’s got a new backpack stuffed with clothes and food and a Greyhound ticket to Kansas City in his pocket.

She doesn’t believe it’s him, at first, and then she starts crying—loud, jubilant sobs that scrape against his heart. Paula and Mercedes are at school, so at least he just has his mother to contend with. He assures that he’s okay, he’s alive. But he isn’t coming home.

“Mijo _…”_

“Just leave the city, okay?” he says, resting his forehead against the phone box and his chest aching like a massive bruise. “Move. You can use the money I sent you. Please, Ma.”

She tries to protest, ask where he is.

“I can’t tell you. Just please, trust me? I’ll … I’ll try to call again soon, but you need to go. Don’t tell me where.”

She starts crying again, but he manages to extract a promise from her that she’ll leave Philadelphia and not tell anyone she’s spoken with him. He, in turn, promises to keep in touch. Knows that he won’t.

He may never talk to her again.

When he hangs up, he takes a long moment to collect himself—jaw clenched tight against his tears. She’s okay, that’s what matters, and he’s alive and he’s going to stay that way. He exits the phone booth into the rainy afternoon, pulling the hood of his new sweatshirt up. It’s a few sizes too big, but at least all of his cuts and scars are covered.

On the bus, he steals a seat in the back corner and curls up into a ball, backpack stored securely at his feet. It’s almost seventeen hours to Kansas City. He doesn’t expect to sleep—wound too tight with nerves and grief—but his eyes turn to lead and close before they’re even out of the city.

_ _

 

In Carmel, Vanessa finally gets to sit on her beach. It’s a perfect, cloudless day and she looks stunning in her purple bathing suit. Usnavi isn’t content to sit still and sunbathe, so he drags Ruben into the water. It’s surprisingly cold, but Ruben adjusts quickly—too caught up in trying to dunk Usnavi under to worry too much. Usnavi gives as good as he gets and he’s _fast,_ twisting easily out of Ruben’s grip and knocking his feet out from under him.

Vanessa, after a lot of cajoling, wades in to join them and promptly gains the upper hand. Ruben ends up with a mouthful of sea water and Usnavi splutters like a drowned rat, but they’re all laughing.

“I tried to run to Jamaica,” Ruben says once they’ve calmed, floating on his back in the waves. “Never made it to the beach, though. Spent four months locked in a house instead.”

“I’m guessing … you didn’t lock yourself in the house?” Usnavi asks quietly.

“No,” Ruben says and Vanessa appears over him, blocking the glare of the sun. He can’t make out her face, but her hand on his stomach is gentle. “I didn’t. Had to eventually break a window to get out. It’s a long story.”

He shifts, standing back up in the waist-deep water, and shrugs. “Kind of sad, too.”

“You know we’ll listen,” Usnavi says, kissing his scarred shoulder. “If you need to tell it.”

Ruben shakes his head. “I don’t want to be sad right now. I want to nap on the beach.”

Vanessa brushes his wet hair off his forehead. “Pretty sure that can be arranged.”

_ _

 

He ends up in Chicago after three days of city-hopping—hours and hours spent on Greyhounds until he was ready to scream—and decides to stop, for now.

Surely over seventeen hundred miles is enough, right?

There’s a shelter downtown, run by a tough-looking, no-nonsense woman named Yvonne and designed specifically for people like him. The beds are full of runaways—teens, women, the occasional young man—and Yvonne watches over all of her charges like a protective hawk. Promises that she won’t ever cooperate with the police if they show up asking questions and will warn them if anyone else comes looking.

He spends his days sleeping or helping around the shelter and his evenings cleaning empty office buildings. Keeps his head down and doesn’t make friends. Fortunately, everyone else is in the same survival mindset, so he doesn’t feel too guilty about his standoffishness.

A month passes, two, and he starts to consider longer term options. Maybe he can stay here? Find more permanent housing and a better-paying job.

Those dreams get dashed, though, when Yvonne calls him on his prepaid cellphone one evening. It’s late and he’s on his way back to the shelter from work, feeling exhausted down to his bones.

“A man was here looking for you,” Yvonne says as soon as he picks up. “Blue eyes, brown hair, creepy smile.”

He freezes in the middle of the sidewalk, stunned speechless with terror.

“I told him you moved on weeks ago, but I don’t know if he believed me. So, I’m sending Felix to meet you with your stuff, okay?”

He blows out a long breath and tells himself sternly to focus. He anticipated this. It’ll be fine.

“Thank you.”

“Take care of yourself.”

An hour later, he’s back on a fucking Greyhound with his backpack in his lap and a headache from the hip-hop music blaring out of his seatmate’s headphones. He grits his teeth, fighting down the urge to reach over and break the dude’s phone or just scream until the sound drowns out everything else.

Goddamnit. He’d thought, just for a moment, that he could stop running, that he could be safe and…

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, squeezing his eyes shut. It doesn’t.

_ _

 

They spend an entire afternoon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Ruben can practically feel himself turning back into a little kid. He’s always loved animals and seriously considered going into marine biology or zoology rather than chemistry for several years. Why he changed his mind, he doesn’t know. Working with animals would have been so much better than working with people.

He rambles again as they pass through different exhibits—a tide of words pouring out of his mouth faster than even Usnavi usually talks, and a small part of him is embarrassed by his enthusiasm, but the rest of him is too busy running in excited circles to do much about it.

"You’re so _cute_ ,” Vanessa says when he’s cooing over manta rays, looking close to actually pinching him on the cheek.

He shrugs, blushing. He’s pretty sure Usnavi has been recording a shit ton of video this whole time, too, but he doesn’t mind. He cuts them open a lot, without meaning to. Even though he tries not to be, he knows that most of the time he’s like a castle surrounded by a moat and thorny hedges—jagged-edged and prickly and bound to make you bleed. He’s glad for the chance to show them that that isn’t _all_ he is—that he still has soft parts worth loving.

“We have to go see the Cephalopods next. They have a chambered nautilus and I’ve always wanted to see one up close.”

“As long as we get to see the sea otters,” Usnavi replies, taking his hand and swinging their arms. “They hold hands when they sleep and it’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen.”

Ruben laughs and reaches for Vanessa’s hand on instinct. “Sure. We’re here to see everything.”

“And watch you geek out over it,” Vanessa teases, sliding her fingers through his.

“Shut up, García,” he says, aiming for dignified but undercut by the deep flush still on his cheeks. “Science is fascinating to a lot of people.”

“Uh-huh,” Vanessa says, dry.

“It’s like watching a kid in a candy shop,” Usnavi adds.

Ruben sniffs in mock outrage and leads them towards the Cephalopods.

_ _

 

He goes west to Denver and then winds his way north again, hopping from city to city until he settles into Minneapolis for the winter. He finds a basement apartment for cheap, sharing with five other Latinos. His bed is a rickety cot pushed against one wall of a tiny bedroom and though everyone tries to keep the place clean, it’s steadily falling apart—holes in the walls, no hot water, no central heating, just a cheap radiator that breaks all the time.

He dresses in layers to combat the unending cold and speaks more Spanish than he has in years and manages to get a job as a cleaner and another as a dishwasher. He works himself to the bone so he doesn’t have to think and he’ll be too exhausted to dream and risk waking up his housemates with his screams. He still takes to sleeping with some kind of gag in his mouth—usually the hood of his sweatshirt—just in case.

His housemates are nice, mostly his age, but like the shelter, they don’t ask questions of each other. They work and sleep and scrape together meals on the rusting stove, trying to eke out an existence in this supposed land of opportunity.

The weather is brutal, even worse than Philadelphia—cold unlike anything he’s ever experienced before—but he still walks the thirty minutes home from the restaurant every morning because he’s so sick of damn buses. He’s on his way back from a double shift, hat and gloves and scarf doing little to combat the wind, when he rounds a corner and crashes right into someone.

Coffee spills all over the pavement and the sleeve of his coat.

“Shit,” he says, bending to retrieve the fallen cup. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“ _Ruben?”_

He jerks back to his feet and finds himself face to face with a wide-eyed Josh.

Fuck. Seriously?

“Ruben?” Josh says again. “Oh, my god, it’s really you.”

This can’t be happening.

“I can’t believe this,” Josh continues. “It’s been _months._ Dr. Cole has been looking _everywhere_ for you, what are you doing in—”

Ruben’s brain snaps back online at the mention of Jason. “You can’t tell him you saw me.”

“W-what?” Josh frowns at him. “What are you talking about…?”

Ruben steps forward and fists a hand in the front of Josh’s coat, ignoring his squeak of surprise. “You _cannot_ tell Jason that you saw me, Josh. This meeting never happened. I was never here. Do you understand?”

Josh blinks at him owlishly, uncomprehending. Ruben gives him a rough shake. “Do you understand, Josh?”

“Yes, but, Ruben, what the hell is going on? What happened to you? Why are you here? Let go of me.” He squirms in Ruben’s grip and Ruben pushes him away, barely listening to his continuing barrage of questions—mind already skipping several steps ahead.

He needs to leave again. Should have enough time to get back to the apartment and collect his things before Josh finds Jason and tells him. He must be here for something medical. Maybe at Twin Cities Memorial? That’s a ways downtown and Josh won’t be stupid enough to follow him home. From the apartment, it’s not far the to the nearest Greyhound station. He’ll keep going east this time. Cincinnati, maybe?

“Ruben…” Josh grabs his arm, wrenching him back to the present.

He twists free and hooks a foot behind Josh’s knee, knocking him to the pavement before his brain has time to catch up with his body. Josh stares up at him, open-mouthed, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, feeling strangely embarrassed.

“Good-bye, Josh.”

He starts to walk away and Josh scrambles back to his feet, slipping on the ice. “Ruben, wait!”

Ruben rounds the next corner at a run, not daring to look back.

_ _

 

Nina Rosario isn’t what he expected. She greets them at the door with an excited shout and folds Usnavi, then Vanessa, into her arms before hugging him like she’s known him her entire life.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she says, brown eyes sparkling. “It’s great to finally meet you.” She glances back and forth between him and Usnavi. “And you were right, Vanessa. So weird.”

“Lay off,” Usnavi whines. “We don’t look _that_ similar.”

Vanessa pats his shoulder. “Sure, babe.”

Nina has leftovers warming on the stove and she sits them down around her cramped kitchen table, demanding updates on the store and the barrio and Benny (mostly Benny). She doesn’t press Ruben for much personal information or comment on his silence, just puts several cups of tea in his hand, and he likes her a lot.

She’s kind and disarming and it’s easy to say, “I survived a PhD program at an Ivy League school so if you ever want to commiserate about how awful it is, I’m happy to listen.”

She grins at him—wide and unhindered like Usnavi does sometimes—and nods. “Definitely. Everyone here is so _rich.”_

“Tell me about it,” Ruben says with a grimace. “I met a guy at MIT once who didn’t know how to put gas in his car because his daddy had always paid someone to do it for him.”

That launches them into nearly an hour of swapping ridiculous stories about privileged classmates and it’s nearly one a.m. before they decide to turn in for the night. Vanessa decides to sleep in with Nina, leaving Usnavi and Ruben to take the spare bedroom.

“Just ignore all of the clutter,” Nina advises them. “Both Clara and Amanda are kind of pack rats and really into crafts.”

It does look a bit like a bomb has gone off—half-finished projects everywhere and one of the beds is piled high with a truly bizarre assortment of knick-knacks. Ruben has never seen so many stuffed rabbits in his life.

“I’m not even gonna ask,” Usnavi mutters, nudging Ruben. “Scoot over.”

Ruben presses back against the wall and opens the blanket for Usnavi to slide under. Usnavi wraps an arm around his waist, sighing in contentment.

“How are you doing?” he asks after a moment of quiet.

“Okay,” Ruben replies and it isn’t a lie. “Before I used to just get on buses and hop cities until I couldn’t stand it anymore. This is better.”

“It’s been amazing,” Usnavi agrees and shifts onto his back, resting his head against Ruben’s. “Thank you.”

“Pretty sure that should be the other way around,” Ruben says. “I’d probably be sleeping in my car if it wasn’t for you and Vanessa.”

“Nah,” Usnavi murmurs. “This wasn’t a hardship.” His foot nudges Ruben’s. “ _You_ ain’t a hardship.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ruben mutters.

Because here is a short list of things he hasn’t told them:

  * The drugs he supplied to Jason for years were highly illegal and broke all kinds of ethical and hospital codes.
  * Ian and those fucked up months in Jamaica are technically the longest relationship he’s ever had.
  * He once nearly murdered a patient at Jason’s request.
  * He carries a syringe around with him everywhere, full of the most potent version of Blackout he’s ever made. If Jason or Ian comes for him, he’s still not sure if he’ll try to push it into their veins or his own.
  * He now knows how to pick a lock pretty much blindfolded because of the months he spent practicing after Jamaica.
  * He also knows how to dislocate his thumb and get himself out of handcuffs or ropes. And the best way to break zip ties.
  * He’s gone more than four days without sleep because of nightmares and still been able to function.
  * He hasn’t called his mother since Austin, over a year ago, even though he knows she must be worried sick about him. Mostly because he can’t bear the sound of her tears.
  * He first started helping Jason because Jason’s problem fascinated him, not out of any sense of altruism.
  * Altruism has never actually come naturally to him. He has to work at it, like cultivating a garden.
  * He thinks about leaving them at least once a week, because he sees them die in his dreams over and over and over.
  * He still regrets not ramming that knife into Ian’s neck.



He isn’t kind and he isn’t good and it’s an unfathomable mystery to him that they’ve decided to love him.

“I’m not saying it’s easy,” Usnavi murmurs. “It isn’t. It hurts.” He laughs, a little broken. “What you went through, watching you struggle with it now, makes me sadder and angrier than I’ve ever felt in my life. But being with you makes me so fucking _happy,_ Ruben, you don’t even _know_. Pretty sure that’s love for you.” His shoulder rubs against Ruben’s as he shrugs. “Either way, it’s worth it.”

“You terrify me,” Ruben admits, suddenly, and then pauses, surprised at himself. Usnavi makes a distressed sound, going to sit up, but Ruben shakes his head and puts a staying hand on his stomach. “I’ve never loved anyone before. Like this. For a long time, I didn’t think I was capable of it. But now that you’re here … I’m mostly scared of losing you. It won’t kill me, I know that, if it happened. But it would come close and I’m … I swore I’d never give anyone that power over me again. But it doesn’t feel like that, either, like it did with Jason and…” He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m not making sense.”

“Ruben,” Usnavi says, edging towards scared. “Do we … do we _remind you of…?”_

“ _No,”_ Ruben insists and sits up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No, I’m sorry. That isn’t what I meant.” Everything is rattling around inside of him and he squeezes his eyes shut, willing it to settle so he can _think._

“You make me really fucking happy, too,” he says after a long moment. “But I’m not … I don’t know how to trust that yet. Things shatter so easily. I guess … I know I have no right to ask this of you, but be patient? With me? I don’t want to be scared. I _don’t._ You’re both so amazing and I love you, I do, but…”

“But love isn’t a cure all,” Usnavi agrees, sitting up, too. “Can I touch you?”

Ruben nods and feels Usnavi’s chin settle into a now familiar spot on his shoulder. “Paciencia y fe _,”_ Usnavi murmurs. “That was Abuela Claudia’s motto. Said it to me a million times growin’ up.”

“Patience and faith,” Ruben repeats. It sounds like something his own mother would say.

Usnavi makes a soft sound of agreement. “So I’m not going anywhere, okay? Neither is Vanessa. And we’ll figure it out. He comes looking for you … we’ll figure it out. As long as you promise not to leave us behind?”

“I’m good at running,” Ruben says, bitter.

Usnavi kisses his jaw. “I know you are. But that doesn’t fix everything, either. Stay with us, yeah? Paciencia y fe _._ We’ll figure it out.”

Ruben closes his eyes, sinking back into Usnavi’s warmth. He might regret this, but he doesn’t care. “Okay.”

Usnavi’s lips move to the corner of his eye, then his cheek, lingering. “Good. For now, let’s enjoy the hell out of our last few days here.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Usnavi squeezes his waist and flops back onto the bed. Ruben follows, draping a protective arm over Usnavi’s stomach.

“Hey, Usnavi?”

“Hmmm?”

“I’m gonna tell you all of it. I promise.”

He swears it to himself, too. Tries to make it ironclad in his mind—something he can’t back down from.

“Okay,” Usnavi murmurs, sleepy. “But don’t stress too much about it. We have time.”

Time. What a novelty. 

_ _

 

He spends three months on the move, this time—too scared to linger in any city for longer than a week or two. Detroit to Cleveland to Cincinnati to Columbus to Buffalo to Albany to Boston to Providence and finally down to New York City.

It’s closer to Philadelphia than he wants to be, but New York is _huge_ and the neighborhood he lands in is predominantly Latino. He’s probably one of two or three Ruben Marcados on his block alone.  This time, he gets his own apartment—a tiny walkup above a barbershop—and decides to go for a job that isn’t menial labor. His savings have dwindled down to almost nothing and he needs to make more than minimum wage.

Teaching turns out to be the answer. A community college in the Bronx is happy to have him, even though he’s hedgy about his history and refuses to let them call for any references. As soon as he shows them what he can do with even a basic chemistry set, they’re enthusiastically on board.

He still takes a long, circuitous route to work and back home again, getting off several blocks before his actual stop and watching the shadows the whole way to his apartment. He installs extra locks on all of his doors, but makes sure that every window opens fine, especially the one leading to the fire escape. He doesn’t talk to anyone, not even the cheerful guy at the bodega he sometimes ducks into to buy food.

He needs to keep his head down and he needs to make sure he has plenty of contingency plans in place. Including some kind of alert system.

It’s a huge fucking gamble, but he buys a burner phone and does some very invasive googling until he has a cell number. Still takes him two weeks to work up the courage to call it.

Connie screams when she realizes who it is and doesn’t calm down for the next ten minutes.

“I can’t explain much,” he says when he finally has her full attention. “But I need your help.”

“It’s something to do with Dr. Cole, isn’t it?” she says, as astute as ever. “You and him disappear for months and then he comes back without you and won’t say anything … it’s been really weird.”

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. But yes. It has to do with him. He can’t know where I am. He can’t find me, Connie.”

“Okay,” Connie says, now with remarkable calm. “What do you need me to do?”

“Call this number and tell me if he’s ever coming to New York. For any reason. That way I can know to leave town.”

“Okay,” Connie says again. Then, “are you all right, Ruben?”

“Yes,” he lies. “I’m fine. Thank you, Connie. I owe you one.”

“Write me a recommendation to grad school,” Connie says, half-teasing. “I’m applying to a PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania.”

“Done,” Ruben agrees. “It’ll be glowing.”

She laughs and hangs up, making him promise to be careful before she goes. He actually misses her—a small twinge in his chest that takes him by surprise.

_ _

 

Nina takes them around Stanford the next morning, one arm linked through Vanessa’s and the other free to point out the various academic buildings. It really is a gorgeous campus: flowers, palm trees, red-roofed buildings, and sprawling green lawns.

“I can _feel_ the wealth,” Usnavi murmurs to him as they stroll down an arched walkway.

“Yeah,” Ruben agrees. He’s spent plenty of time around wealth—Columbia and MIT were just as prestigious—but it still itches under his skin, makes him feel hopelessly out of place.

He could work for years and become a millionaire and never fit in here because most of these kids were born with it—silver spoons in their mouths and sports cars in the driveway as soon as they got their license. He glances over at Nina in her graphic tee and cheap flats, curly hair cascading down her shoulders, and feels a strange rush of pride.

“You like it here?” he asks her later, as they all climb into Louise for the drive up to San Francisco.

She shrugs. “I miss home, but yeah. It’s rewarding and terrifying all at the same time. I almost dropped out freshman year and now there’s only one left but…” she sighs and shrugs again. “I worry. That’s all.”

In a rare moment of boldness, Ruben reaches out and places his hand over hers. “You’re gonna make it.”

She blinks at him, and even though there’s only a few years separating them, she looks suddenly young. “You think so?”

“Yep,” he says, firm. He can see it in her: the same fire that’s always burned at the center of his own chest; the kind that makes the whole world feel too small until you’ve managed to reach the top of it. “You’re gonna be amazing.”

She grins at him and squeezes his hand. “Thank you.”

Conversation turns after that to Nina’s major, Social Work, and her summer job working at a local shelter for at risk women and youth. Ruben thinks of Yvonne back in Chicago and hears the same protective note in Nina’s voice as she describes some of the people she’s met at the shelter. She’s probably great it, he decides. She has the same soothing presence, too.

And she still doesn’t ask about Ruben’s relationship with Vanesssa and Usnavi, or the scars on his arms, or the reason behind this whole impromptu visit. He thinks she must know some of it, because she also doesn’t look surprised when Vanessa shifts to lean her head on Ruben’s shoulder halfway through the drive.

No, she just flicks the radio until she lands on a hip-hop station and raps along with Usnavi and JayZ like a pro.

He definitely likes her.

_ _

 

Keep his head down, don’t make waves, don’t plant roots, six months here at the most then leave—head west, maybe California or something. That’s his plan. It’s a good one. He should stick to it.

But the cheerful guy at the bodega has a name now (Usnavi) and a laugh that Ruben feels to his bones and a smile that’s like watching the fucking sun rise over the Hudson. And Usnavi has a girlfriend who’s a kind of gorgeous that’s devastating and rough around the edges in a way he understands all too well. And Usnavi lights up whenever he walks through the door and doesn’t seem put off at all by Ruben’s curt answers or his silences or the way his shoulders sometimes stiffen when Usnavi hugs him. And he finds his feet taking him there more afternoons than not, these days, to perch on the counter and listen to Usnavi ramble and trade affectionate barbs with Vanessa.  

And he has a plan, he should stick to it, but his _heart._

He doesn’t think his heart is going to let him.

 _ _

 

San Francisco is crowded and a little loud, but the view of the Golden Gate Bridge is amazing.

“I like the GWB better,” Usnavi declares and Nina nods in agreement.

They still hike up a trail to the hillside overlooking it and stay to watch the sun set in a glorious riot of gold across the bay. Usnavi takes his hand in the deepening shadows and Vanessa curls her own around his knee and …

The fear is still there. It lurks, coiled in the back of his mind and woven through his spinal vertebrae. It cuts open his scars at night and makes him bleed again. It floods his eyes until he keeps seeing Jason and Ian on sidewalks and in the corner booths of cafes and on the fire escape of his apartment.

It might always be a part of him. Perhaps it has fused with his veins and his lungs and infected the chamber walls of his heart. And perhaps he should leave—pull up the drawbridge to the moat and build the hedges higher and wider until he’s turned himself into a labyrinth that hides every vulnerable piece of him.

That would be smarter, he knows. Safer.

But he doesn’t _want_ to and right now, his heart is quiet, settled. There are things in this world stronger than fear and he thinks that the warmth of Usnavi and Vanessa at his side might just be one of them.

Paciencia y fe. He’ll figure it out.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com), if you like.


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